68% of US employers now have a formal policy governing AI use in the workplace, up from 38% a year earlier, according to Littler's 2026 Annual Employer Survey of more than 300 C-suite executives, in-house lawyers, and HR professionals, published in May 2026. That is one of the sharpest year-over-year jumps recorded in any workplace AI benchmark so far, and it sits well above what global and employee-reported surveys find. The gap between what employers report and what workers experience, and between the United States and other countries, is the story the rest of this page documents.
How many US employers now have a formal AI policy?
68% of US employers had a formal policy governing AI use in the workplace as of Littler's 2026 Annual Employer Survey, its 14th annual edition, based on responses from more than 300 US-based C-suite executives, in-house lawyers, and HR professionals across a range of industries and company sizes. That is a near-doubling from 2025, when only 38% reported a specific AI policy and another 13% said they had developed informal guidelines rather than a formal policy.
Figure 1: US employer AI policy adoption nearly doubled in one survey cycle. Source: Littler 2026 Annual Employer Survey.
Having a policy on paper is not the same as enforcing it. Of the employers surveyed, only 55% also have a formal review or approval process for AI tools before staff can use them, and just 54% restrict what information employees can enter into an AI system. A privacy policy generator built to cover AI-assisted data processing closes part of that gap by keeping the public-facing disclosure current even while the internal review process catches up.
The same survey found employer expectations rising just as fast: 84% expect AI-related policy or regulatory changes to significantly affect their business over the next 12 months, double the 42% who said the same in 2025. Written policies are catching up to AI adoption, but the employers writing them do not expect the underlying rules to stay settled for long.
What does AI policy adoption look like globally?
Global figures run well below the US number. 38% of organizations worldwide have a formal, comprehensive AI policy, according to ISACA's 2026 AI Pulse Poll of more than 3,400 digital trust professionals across IT audit, governance, cybersecurity, privacy, and emerging technology roles, published in May 2026. That is up from 28% a year earlier, but it means fewer than four in ten organizations globally have gone further than a partial policy.
The remaining share of ISACA's respondents splits between two weaker positions. 30% report having only a limited AI policy, one that covers some use cases or departments but not the organization as a whole, and 25% report having no active AI policy at all.
Figure 2: Most organizations worldwide have started AI governance work, but only a minority call it complete. Source: ISACA 2026 AI Pulse Poll.
The gap between the 68% figure Littler recorded among US employers and the 38% figure ISACA recorded globally partly reflects different populations: Littler surveyed US-based legal, HR, and executive decision-makers directly responsible for workplace policy, while ISACA surveyed a broader, global mix of digital trust and technology professionals. Neither number is wrong; they answer slightly different questions about a policy that is still being written in most organizations.
Is AI policy adoption keeping pace outside the United States?
Not yet, though it is accelerating. 31% of UK employers had worked on a formal generative AI policy in the past 12 months, according to CIPD's Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook, a survey of 2,019 UK HR professionals and organizational decision-makers with fieldwork run in September and October 2025. That is nearly double the 16% who said the same the year before, even as 61% of UK organizations already allow employees to use generative AI for work tasks.
Figure 3: UK policy adoption nearly doubled year over year, but still trails 2026 US figures. Source: CIPD Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook.
The pattern across every country-level source is the same: employees are using AI tools faster than employers are writing the rules for them. For the wider picture on how AI adoption is reshaping privacy programs and breach risk beyond policy counts alone, see our AI and privacy statistics for 2026.
Do employees agree their employer has a clear AI policy?
Often, no. 44% of US workers say their employer has no clear AI policy or they are not sure whether one exists, according to Founder Reports' 2026 survey of more than 2,000 employed American adults conducted in April 2026. That is a meaningfully higher figure than Littler's employer-reported 32% without a formal policy, and it points to a communication gap on top of the underlying policy gap: some employers who believe they have a policy have not made staff aware it exists.
Figure 4: Nearly half of US workers cannot confirm their employer has a clear AI policy. Source: Founder Reports 2026 AI in the Workplace survey.
Company size widens the gap further. 59% of workers at companies with fewer than 10 employees report having no AI policy or being unsure one exists, compared with 34% at companies with 1,000 or more employees. Smaller organizations have adopted AI tools just as fast as larger ones but have far less legal and HR infrastructure to write and communicate a formal policy quickly.
What happens without a formal AI policy?
Organizations without a written AI policy do not stop using AI; they lose visibility into how it is used. That progression from no policy to unmanaged risk shows up consistently across every source in this piece, and it echoes a related finding from IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report, covered in our AI and privacy statistics roundup: 63% of the 600 organizations studied there had no AI governance policy at all, and organizations without one were far more likely to report a breach involving an AI model.
Figure 5: Most organizations stop partway through the maturity ladder from no policy to full oversight. Sources: ISACA 2026 AI Pulse Poll; Littler 2026 Annual Employer Survey.
Fewer than a third of Littler's 2026 respondents report having every safeguard in place at once: a formal policy, a review process, and data-entry restrictions. Most organizations sit somewhere in the middle of that ladder, better protected than a year ago but still short of full oversight.
How has AI policy adoption changed since 2023?
Every source tracked in this piece points the same direction over time, even though the surveys are not identical. Policy adoption has climbed steadily since 2023 as AI use inside organizations became routine rather than experimental, and each annual survey wave shows a bigger jump than the one before it.
Figure 6: Policy adoption accelerated every year across four independent surveys. Sources: CIPD, Littler, ISACA, Founder Reports.
How do the major AI policy surveys compare?
| Source | Population surveyed | Prior year | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Littler Annual Employer Survey | US C-suite, legal, and HR leaders (300+) | 38% specific policy, plus 13% guidelines only | 68% formal policy |
| ISACA AI Pulse Poll | Global digital trust professionals (3,400+) | 28% formal comprehensive policy | 38% formal comprehensive policy |
| CIPD Labour Market Outlook | UK HR professionals and decision-makers (2,019) | 16% with a genAI policy | 31% with a genAI policy |
| Founder Reports Workplace Survey | US employed adults (2,000+) | Not tracked in prior wave | 56% report a clear policy exists |
Source: Littler (2026), ISACA (2026), CIPD (2025), Founder Reports (2026).
The size of an employer changes the picture as much as the country does.
| Company size | Workers reporting no clear AI policy or unsure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 10 employees | 59% | Founder Reports 2026 |
| All company sizes (average) | 44% | Founder Reports 2026 |
| 1,000+ employees | 34% | Founder Reports 2026 |
Source: Founder Reports, "AI in the Workplace Statistics for 2026," survey of 2,000+ employed American adults.
The Bottom Line
The share of firms with a formal AI policy roughly doubled across every major 2026 benchmark, from Littler's 38% to 68% jump among US employers to ISACA's 28% to 38% climb worldwide and CIPD's 16% to 31% rise in the UK. Growth is real, but it started from a low base, and the gap between employer self-reports and employee perception, 68% employer-reported versus 56% employee-confirmed, shows that writing a policy and communicating it are two different jobs. Any organization that has adopted AI tools since it last updated its privacy policy has a straightforward first step: name the AI use explicitly in that policy, then confirm employees and customers alike actually know it is there. That policy gap sits alongside a narrower one: only 2% of businesses say they train AI directly on customer data, and fewer still put a training disclosure in writing where a customer can find it, just 8.5% of privacy policies do.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of firms have an AI policy in 2026? 68% of US employers have a formal policy governing AI use in the workplace as of 2026, up from 38% a year earlier, according to Littler's 2026 Annual Employer Survey of more than 300 C-suite executives, in-house lawyers, and HR professionals.
How many organizations worldwide have a formal AI policy? 38% of organizations worldwide have a formal, comprehensive AI policy, per ISACA's 2026 AI Pulse Poll of more than 3,400 digital trust professionals, while 30% have only a limited policy and 25% have no active AI policy at all.
Do most employees think their company has a clear AI policy? No. 44% of US workers say their employer has no clear AI policy or they are not sure one exists, according to Founder Reports' 2026 survey of more than 2,000 employed Americans, and that share rises to 59% at companies with fewer than 10 employees.
Is AI policy adoption growing outside the United States? Yes. 31% of UK employers had worked on a generative AI policy in the past 12 months as of CIPD's Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook, nearly double the 16% recorded the year before, though that still trails the 68% figure Littler reported for US employers in 2026.
Where the Numbers Come From
- Littler. (2026). "The Littler Annual Employer Survey 2026." Survey of 300+ US-based C-suite executives, in-house lawyers, and HR professionals, published May 6, 2026. 68% have a formal AI use policy, up from 38% in 2025.
- ISACA. (2026). "AI Use Accelerates While Governance and ROI Lag." 2026 AI Pulse Poll of more than 3,400 digital trust professionals, published May 5, 2026. 38% formal comprehensive AI policy, up from 28% in 2025.
- CIPD. (2026). "Generative AI at Work: Can It Deliver the Productivity Boost UK Employers Need?" Citing the Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook, a survey of 2,019 UK HR professionals and decision-makers, fieldwork September to October 2025. 31% developed a formal generative AI policy in the past year, up from 16% the year before.
- Founder Reports. (2026). "AI in the Workplace Statistics for 2026." Survey of more than 2,000 employed American adults, fieldwork April 2026. 44% report no clear employer AI policy or are unsure one exists; 59% at companies with fewer than 10 employees.
- IBM Security, research by the Ponemon Institute. (2025). "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025." 600 organizations studied; 63% had no AI governance policy in place.
Note: All figures verified as of August 2026. The Littler and ISACA figures are each organizations' most current annual survey wave available at publication. This page is reviewed and its figures refreshed at least twice a year to track each survey's next edition.
