Gen Z Leads in AI Learning but 57% Struggle to Apply Skills, Survey Finds
A Preply survey of over 5,000 professionals across nine countries shows Gen Z is the most likely generation to use AI for learning, yet 57% say they struggle to apply what they learn in real-world settings.
Young professionals are turning to artificial intelligence to answer workplace questions and build career skills more than any other generation, but a new survey suggests that fluency with chatbots is not translating into confidence on the job. The survey, released by language-learning platform Preply, found that 92% of Gen Z respondents used AI for learning in the past year, yet 57% said they struggled to put what they learned into practice.
The gap was notably wider than for older colleagues. Among Gen X respondents, 40% reported difficulty applying new knowledge, compared with 57% of Gen Z. Nearly three-quarters of Gen Z respondents, 71%, said they felt busy learning without actually improving, while 56% of Gen X respondents reported the same frustration. The survey covered more than 5,000 working professionals across nine countries who had tried to develop a career-related skill in the previous year.
The findings do not establish why younger workers struggled more, or whether AI use was the cause. Respondents were asked about applying what they learned across a range of methods, not only AI. Still, the pattern raises a practical question for employers: whether the learning employees are doing is producing skills they can use, and what kind of support would close the gap.
Josh Crossick, Preply's chief product officer, described learning as a process that includes acquiring knowledge, practicing, and building confidence over time. He said the technology is helping people learn more than ever, but it is not the whole journey. «AI is powerful. And AI is able to support in that journey, but it's far from the whole journey,» Crossick said.
He pointed to his own experience learning Spanish while living in Spain for six years. A tutor taught grammar and vocabulary, but also rehearsed conversations he would need outside the lesson, including taking his children to a doctor. That meant practicing how to explain a problem and respond as the conversation changed. A mistake did not end the exchange; he had to work through it. Practicing with a person feels riskier than practicing with a machine, Crossick said, and that is the point: the confidence built through success also grows.
AI can make practice material easier to find. Todd Hughes, who trains language tutors at Rosetta Stone, has said he asks ChatGPT to generate Swedish reading passages at his level so he can practice without hunting for suitable texts. But easier access to practice material does not guarantee that people feel they are absorbing what they take in. Across all working adults ages 18 to 55, 76% said they spent more time learning than they did two years ago, while 52% said the extra time did not always bring better results. Subjects ranged from data science and AI to business management and public speaking. Improving performance in a current role was the most common motivation, and 51% said their employer paid for some or all of it.
That means companies are investing in learning that employees do not always feel ready to bring to the office. At work, practice and feedback often come through everyday conversations with colleagues. A coworker can explain why a team handles a customer a certain way, question an assumption, and give feedback after seeing how the worker performs. A chatbot can answer a question, but it cannot read the room. Hughes noted that real conversations depend on cues a machine may miss, such as active listening and following up on what someone says.
Iain Smith, head of behavioral science at the nonprofit employee engagement platform Sunny Workplace, has said new workers may miss opportunities to learn informally when colleagues increasingly communicate through screens. They are not necessarily sitting next to someone who has done the job for 20 years and learning the shortcuts and coping strategies, he said. Smith also cautioned against sweeping claims about generations, noting that a new employee's experience of the workplace matters and a generational label alone does not explain how they learn or perform.
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