One in Six UK Workers Now Pay for Their Own AI Tools at Work

Nearly one in six UK workers is personally paying for artificial intelligence tools they use to do their jobs, with employee spending approaching £1 billion a year.

Deloitte’s GenAI Workforce Survey questioned 25,000 British workers and found 17% pay for at least one AI tool used for work.

Around two-thirds of workers have now tried generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot, while almost a quarter use them every day.

Employees who use generative AI report saving an average of 70 minutes each week.

Research, drafting emails and summarising information are among the most common uses.

But much of this adoption is happening independently of employers.

Deloitte found that 31% of workers are using generative AI without their employer knowing.

That creates a separate challenge for companies if employees enter corporate information into AI services that have not been approved or assessed by their employer.

The spending figures also reveal how strongly some workers value the technology.

Rather than waiting for their companies to provide AI tools, employees are paying for them personally because they believe they make them more productive.

With 17% now paying and total personal expenditure approaching £1 billion annually, workplace AI adoption is increasingly being driven from the bottom up.

Source

• Reuters – UK workers spend nearly £1bn of their own money on AI for work