A new study reveals a hidden cost of using artificial intelligence at work: employees who rely on tools like ChatGPT are trusted less by their supervisors, consequently harming their performance evaluations and promotion prospects. Across six studies, researchers found that managers consistently penalized AI users, even when AI use was not explicitly prohibited. Organizations that actively encouraged AI use substantially reduced this trust penalty, highlighting the critical role of workplace policies in shaping the future of human-AI collaboration.

Artificial intelligence may be making employees faster and more productive, but it could also be quietly damaging their careers. A new study led by Samuel Meyers, a Ph.D. student, together with his advisor Dr. Yochanan Bigman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Roman Briker of WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany, suggests that workers who use ChatGPT and other AI tools may pay an unexpected professional price: their managers are less likely to trust them.

The research, published in the prestigious scientific journal The Leadership Quarterly, reveals that supervisors consistently place less trust in employees who rely on artificial intelligence to complete their work, even when using such technology is not explicitly prohibited.

Across six studies, the researchers examined how employees' use of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, influences their supervisors' trust and subsequent professional evaluations.

The hidden price of using AI
In one experiment, participants acting as supervisors were asked to decide whether to trust an employee's report about time spent completing a task or verify it themselves. The supervisors knew whether the employee had produced the work independently or used AI.

The results were striking: employees who completed the work themselves had a 68% chance of earning their supervisors’ trust, compared with just 24% when they used AI. Importantly, supervisors were not evaluating the quality of the finished work. Their decisions were based on knowing how it had been produced, suggesting that the use of AI itself can influence judgments about an employee's trustworthiness.

The researchers also compared AI-assisted work with work copied from another person. While using AI reduced trust compared with independent work, it was still viewed more favourably than plagiarism.

The implications could extend far beyond everyday workplace relationships. Additional experiments showed that lower supervisory trust was associated with poorer evaluations of employee performance, reduced perceptions of employees' contributions to the organization, and lower perceived suitability for promotion.

“AI is changing not only how we work, but also how we judge the people we work with,” said Dr. Bigman. “An employee may use AI to produce better work more efficiently yet still lose their manager's trust simply because AI was involved. Organizations need to recognize that adopting AI is not just a technological challenge — it is also a psychological and managerial one.”

Can company policy change the picture?
Perhaps the most encouraging finding concerns the role of employers themselves.

The researchers discovered that when organizations explicitly encouraged employees to use AI, the negative effect on supervisory trust was substantially reduced and was no longer statistically significant.

In contrast, when AI use was prohibited — or when no organizational policy existed — supervisors were significantly less likely to trust employees who used it.

Surprisingly, neither the importance of the task nor supervisors' own experience with AI consistently eliminated the trust penalty.

The findings were further supported by a study involving academic supervisors evaluating real work by graduate students. The more extensively students used AI, the less their supervisors tended to trust them.

A wake-up call for employers
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into workplaces, the researchers warn that organizations may face a growing dilemma: employees are encouraged to embrace technologies that improve productivity, while simultaneously risking negative judgments for using them.

This tension could even encourage employees to conceal their AI use, creating what researchers call “shadow AI” — the undisclosed use of artificial intelligence at work.

The findings suggest that employers should go beyond simply providing access to AI tools. Clear organizational policies that actively support responsible AI use, alongside appropriate managerial training, may help protect workplace trust.

For employees, the message is equally important: the benefits of AI may depend not only on what the technology can accomplish, but also on how managers perceive those who use it.

The study highlights a paradox of the AI revolution: the technology designed to make us better at our jobs may also make our bosses trust us less.