WalkMe Releases The State of Digital Adoption 2026 Report: AI Investment Hits Record Highs as Employees Pull Away from AI Tools

WalkMe Inc. announced its fifth annual report, The State of Digital Adoption 2026. The report reveals that while corporate investment in AI has reached record levels, employees are increasingly moving away from AI tools. According to the survey, more than half of employees, 54%, completed tasks manually without using AI tools in the past 30 days, while 33% did not use AI at all. This indicates not merely friction, but a clear rejection of AI. The global survey covered 3,750 executives and employees across 14 countries at enterprise companies with more than 1,000 employees. It highlights a fundamental perception gap: executives and employees are seeing entirely different versions of the same company. There is a 52-point gap in trust toward AI: only 9% of employees trust AI for important and complex business decisions, compared with 61% of executives. There is a 67-point gap in tool adequacy: 88% of executives believe they provide employees with sufficient tools, while only 21% of employees agree. There is also a gap in perceptions of productivity. While 81% of executives believe AI has significantly improved productivity, employees spend 7.9 hours per week, effectively a full business day, dealing with digital frustration. Employees lose the equivalent of 51 business days per year due to technology friction, a 42% deterioration from 2025. Lost time had improved from 43 days in 2024 to 36 days in 2025, but the rapid rollout of AI tools has pushed the figure to its worst level in three years. Despite a 38% year-over-year increase in digital investment, 40% of that investment has failed to deliver expected outcomes. “The problem is not AI’s capability,” said Dan Adika, co-founder and CEO of WalkMe. “Technology will continue to evolve. But what will not improve naturally is the human side: the trust gap, the governance gap, and the question of who acts, when, and under what guardrails. That is what the data is really showing. And as AI becomes smarter, this problem will not disappear; it will become harder.” The trust gap is also accelerating the issue of shadow AI. At least 45% of employees used AI tools not approved by their company in the past 30 days, and 36% of them used those tools for work involving confidential data. Meanwhile, 78% of executives say they want to take disciplinary action against shadow AI use, but only 21% of employees have ever received a warning about internal AI usage policies. In addition, 34% of employees said they do not know which AI tools their company has approved. The contradiction runs deeper: 62% of executives believe the risks of shadow AI are overstated and that the bigger issue is insufficient AI adoption in the first place. “Shadow AI use should be seen not as behavior to punish, but as an opportunity to address systemic gaps,” said Keith Kirkpatrick, vice president and research director for enterprise software and digital workflows at The Futurum Group. “When employees use unapproved AI tools, they are trying to fill performance and efficiency gaps created by officially approved tools and unclear governance. Organizations that close this gap by giving AI real-time context, cross-application reach, and strong guardrails will ultimately see the greatest return on their AI investments.” The full The State of Digital Adoption 2026 report is available from WalkMe. WalkMe will also host a webinar explaining the report, titled “How to Close the Gap Between the Ideal and Reality of AI Adoption: Challenges and Solutions from the Latest Global AI Research,” on Thursday, May 21, 2026, from 14:00 to 14:40. The State of Digital Adoption 2026 is based on a global online survey conducted through an independent research firm among 3,750 respondents in 14 countries, including 1,700 senior executives and 2,050 office and hybrid workers at enterprise companies with more than 1,000 employees. WalkMe also analyzed millions of real workflows across thousands of enterprise applications. WalkMe, an SAP company, is an essential layer for helping enterprises succeed with AI. Copilots and AI agents are powerful but incomplete: they cannot understand what is happening on an employee’s screen, move across applications, or operate where work actually gets done. WalkMe can. Built on more than a decade of enterprise experience, WalkMe gives AI real-time context and cross-application execution capabilities to produce reliable outcomes. It helps companies adapt quickly to change, make better decisions, and enable continuous learning. WalkMe is trusted by global leaders including Asahi Kasei, Ebara Corporation, Fujitsu, and the U.S. Department of Defense, and helps turn AI investments into measurable business outcomes.