June 18, 2026
The Frontline AI Gap: Why Frontline Workers Use AI Three Times Less Than Desk Staff
Another report shows the frontline workforce being left behind – this time on AI.
New research from Workvivo by Zoom has found a frontline AI gap emerging. The study of 4,736 frontline and desk employees revealed that frontline workers are three times less likely than desk workers to use AI tools regularly.
Driving this gap is not poor access to the tools, at least not entirely. It comes more from a lack of communication, encouragement, and education from organisations.
Only 28% of frontline workers say their company encourages AI use, compared with 55% of desk workers.
Meanwhile, half of desk workers say their company provides clear guidance on how to use AI tools in their work, compared with three in 10 frontline workers.
Frontline Fear of AI?
The data shows frontline workers are less positive about AI than desk workers. But Workvivo frames this as a problem of disconnection rather than fear of the technology itself.
The study found frontline workers are less likely than their desk-based counterparts to agree that AI will improve their jobs. They are also less likely to say they worry AI tools will make their role redundant.
The argument coming through is that frontline workers are not AI laggards, as some assume. The problem stems from organisations building their AI rollouts for desk workers, not those on the shop floor.
The Forgotten Workforce
This finding aligns with wider data describing the frontline as the forgotten workforce. Axonify research highlights a leadership–frontline perception gap, with leaders viewing the situation far more positively than those on the floor. For example, 74% of leaders say feedback is acted on, against only 41% of frontline employees, and a similar gap (87% against 56%) appears on whether important updates reach the floor.
On skills development, organisations also underinvest in frontline workers, spending roughly $400 per frontline worker a year against more than $1,500 for office-based roles.
When it comes to frontline engagement, Perceptyx research found that the top drivers for retail workers was not salary, benefits, or flexibility. It was whether workers felt their voice was heard and their feedback acted on. This means the workers who most value having their say are the least likely to be heard.
The frontline AI gap is not a standalone issue, then. It is part of a wider pattern of disconnection between the frontline and head office.
Bersin’s Taxonomy: Why ‘Frontline’ Was Always Too Blunt a Category
A simplistic view of the ‘frontline’ is contributing to this long-standing lack of support, understanding, and investment. The workers grouped into this category have very different skills, hiring difficulty, pay, and career prospects. Electricians, plumbers, and vocational nurses, for example, can earn two or three times more than lower-skilled workers.
Addressing this, The Josh Bersin Company recently launched a research-based taxonomy that breaks the frontline workforce into five distinct categories: Customer-Facing Associates, Back-Office Associates, High-Skilled Specialists, Licensed Specialists, and Credentialed Professionals.
These distinctions matter for organisations trying to close the frontline AI gap. A retail associate, a warehouse picker, a rail engineer, and an airline pilot are all ‘frontline’ by the conventional definition. But their relationship to AI tools, their device access, their literacy needs, and their appetite for automation differ enormously.
Workvivo’s 32% frontline AI adoption figure is an average across all of that. The real picture is likely far more uneven, and a response that ignores the nuance risks repeating the same blunt-category mistake Bersin is calling out.
How Organisations Are Starting to Respond to Frontline Needs
Some organisations are beginning to address this. Several HR leaders at the Engage Employee Summit in May 2026 described taking a more strategic approach to frontline listening and AI rollouts.
easyJet has launched a shared listening system, Airwaves, to better capture the voices of the 80% of its workforce who spend their working day in the air.
Jane Garnsey, People COO at Skipton Building Society, described building trust with branch colleagues by reframing the relationship at leadership level. The message from the top was clear: “We in head office are here to serve you. Your voice needs to be louder, because you’re serving our customers every day.”
On AI specifically, Sky has made a values-based decision not to use AI in certain contexts, even where it technically could, in order to maintain trust with its workforce. This matters when addressing the frontline AI gap. Closing it is not simply a matter of telling people to ‘use these tools as much as you can’. Organisations need to help employees judge when to reach out to a colleague and when to reach for an AI tool.
The Frontline AI Gap is a Symptom
The frontline AI gap is real, but it is a symptom rather than the disease. It reflects how organisations have designed listening, training, and technology around desk-based work for years, while treating the frontline as a single, undifferentiated block.
The organisations that close it will be the ones that stop asking why frontline workers are slow to adopt AI and start asking which frontline workers they mean, what those workers actually need, and how better tools translate into a better experience for the customers they serve every day.
