On Wednesday, September 16, according to Deloitte’s “GenAI Workforce Survey”, a renowned international accounting firm, it was revealed that in the United Kingdom, one out of every six employees purchases AI tools at their own expense to aid their work. Deloitte estimates that the total annual expenditure on this amounts to nearly £1 billion (approximately $1.35 billion).
A survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Deloitte polled 25,000 UK employees (including self-employed individuals) from May 7 to June 10, 2026. The survey found that two-thirds of the respondents had tried using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, with nearly 25% of them using these tools on a daily basis in their work.
The survey results also indicated that employees are adopting AI tools at a faster rate on their own initiative compared to the tools provided by their employers. 31% of the respondents admitted to using generative AI (shadow AI) without their employers’ knowledge, and 17% of them paid for at least one generative AI tool to assist in their work.
Furthermore, the survey found that the most common uses of AI in the workplace include information search, email writing, and summarization tasks. On average, employees using generative AI tools save 70 minutes per week.
Hayley McKelvey, Deloitte’s Chief AI Officer in the UK, stated, “The actions of UK employees have shown that they are not willing to wait for company approval to start using generative AI. Many have already been using free AI tools or even paying for advanced AI versions to help them in their work.”
Paul Lee, a partner at Deloitte, pointed out that generative AI has rapidly integrated into daily work routines, but for many employees, its role remains basic as they primarily use AI for information search and content writing rather than supporting more complex tasks.
He added that in the future, companies that can gain a greater advantage from AI are those that can guide employees in using AI under robust protection and clear objectives.