Seven in Ten Polish Employees Feel More Productive Thanks to AI

Polish employees are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence in their daily work, and most say they can feel the difference. A newly published SD Worx survey shows that 70.3% of people who use AI at work say it makes them more productive, though employer support for developing these skills still lags well behind the benefits employees report.

The data comes from the 2026 HR & Payroll Pulse report, prepared by European HR and payroll services provider SD Worx. The survey covered nearly 6,000 employers and 16,500 employees across 16 European countries, making it one of the continent's broader surveys on everyday AI use in the workplace.

Poland above average

The survey found that 38.4% of Polish employees regularly use AI-based tools to support their work, well above the European average of 29.3%. In addition, 41% of Poles say they are increasingly turning to AI in their daily duties, pointing to growing rather than one-off adoption of these tools.

There's also a gap by job role. Among managers, 51.3% report growing use of AI, compared with 32.1% among non-managerial employees. This suggests that people managing teams are incorporating AI into their work faster than rank-and-file employees.

Productivity versus employer support

The survey's most important finding, however, concerns the perceived results. Fully 70.3% of employees using AI say it makes them more productive, a high share that confirms AI has stopped being a mere add-on in Polish companies and become a real part of how work is organized.

At the same time, only 58.9% of respondents say they receive sufficient employer support in developing the skills needed to use these tools effectively. The gap between the share of people feeling the benefits and the share who feel adequately prepared points to a skills gap that companies are only beginning to close.

Technology is no longer the domain of specialists alone and is becoming a support in a growing number of professions, but employers' responsibility toward employees is growing too - Ireneusz Hołowacz, SD Worx Poland

Concerns grow with use

The survey also reveals a paradox around fear of job loss. Overall, 34.4% of Poles worry that artificial intelligence will render a large part of their tasks redundant. Interestingly, this concern is higher among people who use AI themselves (45.1%) than among those who don't (29.8%).

The survey's authors interpret this as an effect of direct exposure to what AI tools can do. Employees who see firsthand how quickly these systems handle tasks that used to require their work form a more accurate picture of the scale of change than those observing the process from a distance. Despite these concerns, 60.3% of employees in Poland believe AI will not replace their unique human qualities.

Transparency and new rules

The survey also touches on the ethics and transparency of AI use. 66.6% of Poles believe AI systems should operate transparently, but only 56.8% are convinced their employer uses AI ethically. This gap between expectations and trust comes just as the first requirements of the EU's AI Act start to take effect in Poland.

As attorney Marcin Sanetra of the law firm PCS Paruch Stępień Kanclerz points out, transparency requirements under a reduced version of the AI Act took effect on August 2, 2026, obliging companies to inform employees and customers about interactions with AI systems. For many Polish employers, this means formally regulating practices that until now operated informally.

For Polish companies, the SD Worx findings send a double signal. On one hand, they confirm that investment in AI tools translates into a tangible rise in team productivity, which could support further rollout of these solutions. On the other hand, the gap between the benefits and the training support on offer, along with employees' growing concerns, shows that simply handing out tools without an accompanying communication and education policy is not enough to unlock their full potential.