- TeamViewer report finds 71% of autonomous AI users put safeguards in place, but 61% wouldn’t even use autonomous AI to begin with
- The average worker spends more than 2 hours per week validating AI results
- Security and privacy could have the biggest impact
A new study from TeamViewer identifies trust as the final major barrier to AI adoption, with workers generally viewing the tool positively but struggling to give it complete independence.
Today, three in four workers use AI daily and only 3% say they see no notable benefits in their workplace, but almost all (95%) of those surveyed are at least concerned about AI working without a human involved.
This struggle speaks to the evolution of AI from generative to agentic, with workers more concerned about the autonomy of AI agents than the actual ability of AI to produce results.
Agentic AI’s Biggest Hurdle Is Trust
Three in five people (61%) said they would prefer AI to take no independent action, and only about a third (35%) are willing to have it act autonomously on their behalf. Most of this group (71%) are only comfortable with AI handling defined tasks, confirming that security and guardrails are a necessity.
As for the impact of trust on productivity, more than half (56%) often or always check AI results before relying on them, spending an average of two hours per week checking AI-generated work.
“The real opportunity is to use AI and automation to avoid disruption, improve digital experiences, and enable people to focus on higher-value work,” wrote CEO Oliver Steil.
Strong security and privacy protections would have the greatest impact in making autonomous AI more acceptable, followed by notifications before significant changes are made, restrictions on what information AI can access, tools for monitoring agent activity, and the ability to undo any actions.
“The next step is to design systems that know when to act, when to wait, and when to involve people in the decision,” added Mei Dent, director of product and technology.
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