A new State of Digital Adoption report finds that large majorities of enterprise workers are avoiding AI tools—even as executives increase AI spending. In a survey of 3,750 executives and employees across 14 countries by SAP subsidiary WalkMe, 54% of workers bypassed their company’s AI tools in the prior 30 days and 33% had not used AI at all, with only 9% of workers trusting AI for complex, business-critical decisions. The study also highlights a large trust gap between executives and employees: 61% of executives said they trust AI for complex decisions versus 9% of workers, alongside a tool adequacy discrepancy (88% executives versus 21% workers). The report frames the result as executives and employees describing “fundamentally different companies.” For colleges and universities, the data is a caution as campuses deploy AI for admin and academic operations: adoption failures can translate into budget underperformance even when institutions treat AI as an efficiency lever.