What SurveyMonkey Found About The Hidden Cost Of AI At Work

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Many years ago, I was fortunate to interview former SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie. SurveyMonkey had already built much of its company culture and branding around curiosity, including campaigns and leadership discussions focused on “the power of curiosity” and creating a culture where questioning and listening mattered. During our conversation, Lurie told me that he believed curiosity is at the heart of innovation. So, it was interesting to me to see that SurveyMonkey recently put out some new research about the State of Curiosity at work. The report suggests that while AI may improve speed and output, many workplaces are accidentally creating environments where employees ask fewer questions, rely less on each other, and slowly lose some of the critical thinking and curiosity that organizations actually need most. One of the most striking findings in the report is that 95% of workers describe themselves as curious, yet only 30% say their workplace strongly rewards curiosity. Harvard Business Review previously reported a similar disconnect, finding that only about 24% of employees said they regularly felt curious in their jobs, while roughly 70% said they faced barriers to asking more questions at work.

Why AI At Work May Be Weakening Human Judgment

SurveyMonkey shared that the World Economic Forum noted that curiosity is considered among the fastest-rising skills. Also in the report, Jack Soll, who is a Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizations at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business explained some of the psychology behind curiosity and AI. He explained that AI can create a false sense of completion because once people get an answer from AI, they often feel there is “nothing more to know.” He also warned that while AI may make individuals more efficient, it can also make thinking more uniform, reducing creativity and innovation if people stop questioning and exploring ideas more deeply.

One of the strongest ideas in the report involves what SurveyMonkey calls “the AI middleman.” Leaders are increasingly routing questions through AI instead of through coworkers and teams. In fact, leaders reported using AI in place of colleagues at nearly three times the rate of lower-level employees.

At first, that behavior sounds efficient. Asking AI for quick answers saves time and reduces interruptions. The problem is that many important workplace skills are developed through discussion, disagreement, collaboration, and questioning other people. When those conversations disappear, employees may still get answers, but they lose opportunities to build judgment.

The report found that workers who frequently used AI instead of consulting colleagues reported more mistakes, more missed opportunities, more wasted time, and greater team misalignment. That finding stood out to me because it reinforces something I have studied for years through my work on curiosity. Curiosity is deeply social. Many of the best ideas, discoveries, and innovations happen when people challenge assumptions together rather than simply accepting fast answers individually.

Why AI At Work May Be Reducing Original Thinking

Another major concern in the report involves what SurveyMonkey describes as “the scroll reflex.” The idea is that employees are becoming conditioned to accept the first answer they receive rather than pushing deeper.

More than a third of workers who use AI reported accepting AI output with little or no pushback, even though many of those same workers admitted they actually trust colleagues more than AI. The speed and convenience of AI can create the illusion that faster answers are automatically better answers.

The report also referenced research comparing AI-generated ideas with independently generated human ideas. Humans working alone produced significantly more unique ideas than humans working alongside AI. That finding raises important questions about originality, exploration, and critical thinking in environments where employees increasingly rely on similar tools trained on similar datasets.

This is one of the hidden costs organizations may not fully recognize yet. AI can absolutely improve productivity, but if employees become overly dependent on autocomplete thinking, organizations may slowly lose some of the diversity of thought that drives innovation.

Why AI At Work Is Intensifying The Efficiency Squeeze

The report also examined what it calls “the efficiency squeeze.” Many workplaces reward speed so aggressively that employees no longer feel comfortable slowing things down long enough to ask better questions. According to the report, workers are interrupted every two minutes on average, and nearly half reported having to redo work because the right questions were not asked early enough.

Four in ten employees said they stay quiet during meetings because they do not want to slow things down, while others admitted they avoid speaking up because meetings move too fast or because asking questions may create additional work.

Why AI At Work May Be Hitting Younger Employees Hardest

Their findings also showed that younger workers are paying some of the highest psychological costs. Gen Z employees reported the highest pressure to already know the answer, the highest rates of pretending to understand things they did not fully understand, and the highest likelihood of staying silent after asking “too many” questions.

The impact on curiosity can be interpreted differently depending on an individual’s status within the organization. When senior leaders ask questions, it is often viewed as engagement or strategic thinking. When junior employees ask similar questions, it may be interpreted as being unprepared or inexperienced.

Why AI At Work Requires More Curiosity Rather Than Less

SurveyMonkey found that workplaces that encourage questions reported significantly higher psychological safety and fewer mistakes, missed opportunities, and wasted time than workers in low-curiosity environments. Curiosity itself is not disappearing, but it can be inhibited by several factors including things like fear, assumptions, technology, and interactions in workplace environments. Workers still want opportunities to brainstorm, ask questions, collaborate, and think more deeply. With AI becoming part of so many daily workplace interactions, many employees are still trying to figure out when technology should support human thinking and when it should never replace human conversation, collaboration, and judgment. Technology will keep changing work, but organizations still need people asking questions, brainstorming together, and learning from each other if they want creativity and innovation to survive.