{"id":139030,"date":"2026-08-13T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/139030\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:57:08","slug":"survey-ai-anxiety-tops-employer-concerns-cbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/139030\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey: AI Anxiety Tops Employer Concerns \u00bb CBIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. employers are shifting their regulatory worries toward artificial intelligence and data privacy according to law firm Littler Mendelson\u2019s annual employer survey.<\/p>\n

Littler\u2019s 14th Annual Employer Survey<\/a> shows AI concerns increasing even as immigration enforcement and workplace accommodation demands continue to strain HR departments.<\/p>\n

Conducted in March, they survey of more than 300 C-suite executives, in-house lawyers, and HR professionals, found that 84% of respondents expect AI-related policy or regulatory changes to affect their business over the next year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s double the share who said the same in 2025, when diversity, equity and inclusion topped the list of concerns.<\/p>\n

Data privacy concerns rose alongside AI, with 53% of employers anticipating workplace impacts, up from 31% a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Immigration, DEI Concerns<\/p>\n

By contrast, worry about immigration policy fell sharply, with 49% of employers expecting business impacts this year compared with 75% in 2025.<\/p>\n

DEI-related concern dropped even more steeply, to 38% from 84%. <\/p>\n

\"\"Source: Littler\u2019s 14th Annual Employer Survey.<\/p>\n

Littler researchers said the declines likely reflect employers adapting to the current enforcement environment rather than the issues fading in importance.<\/p>\n

Seventy-three percent of respondents still expect immigration enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to impact workplaces this year.<\/p>\n

The survey also found employers are taking a range of proactive steps to address the staffing impacts of immigration policy and enforcement changes, including clarifying processes and preparing for worksite enforcement activity.<\/p>\n

Reshaping Staffing Decisions<\/p>\n

AI\u2019s expanding footprint is already reshaping staffing decisions. More than a third of employers (37%) say they have reassessed, or are reassessing, job responsibilities because of AI-driven efficiency gains.<\/p>\n

About 20% have reduced hiring or are in the process of doing so, and 15% report workforce reductions tied to AI adoption.<\/p>\n

Large employers are moving faster: 29% have already reassessed job responsibilities, and 17% have cut both hiring and headcount.<\/p>\n

Formal AI governance has improved substantially\u201468% of organizations now have a policy governing workplace AI use, up from 38% a year ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"Source: Littler\u2019s 14th Annual Employer Survey.<\/p>\n

But the survey found notable gaps beneath that headline number. Only about 55% of employers have a formal review or approval process for AI tools, and just 54% restrict what information employees can enter into them.<\/p>\n

Fewer than half have designated AI oversight committees, vendor due-diligence procedures, or tool-specific employee training, and only a quarter offer risk-based AI training on legal or ethical considerations.<\/p>\n

Those gaps help explain why 79% of employers are concerned about AI-related litigation in the coming year.<\/p>\n

Data privacy tied to employee or candidate information leads the list of worries (49%), followed by discrimination or bias claims (45%) and compliance with the growing patchwork of state AI laws (43%).<\/p>\n

Accommodation Requests, Return-to-Office Friction<\/p>\n

Employment litigation concerns rose in 10 of 13 areas surveyed, reversing last year\u2019s trend of declining worry.<\/p>\n

The sharpest jump came in workplace accommodations, where concern climbed 17 percentage points to 67%, driven partly by tension between employees\u2019 pandemic-era expectations for flexibility and employers\u2019 push to bring workers back on site.<\/p>\n

Hybrid arrangements remain the norm: 77% of organizations offer some form of hybrid schedule for roles that could be performed remotely, while just 16% require full-time on-site work and 6% remain fully remote.<\/p>\n

\"\"Source: Littler\u2019s 14th Annual Employer Survey.<\/p>\n

Among employers with fixed hybrid schedules, nearly half now require three in-office days per week, with fewer organizations than in past years allowing only one or two.<\/p>\n

Mental health-related leave and accommodation requests continue to climb, with 67% of employers reporting an increase over the past year\u2014consistent with similar findings in Littler\u2019s 2024 and 2025 surveys.<\/p>\n

Employers cited managing extended or open-ended leaves (75%) and ensuring managers are properly trained to handle requests (70%) as their biggest administrative challenges.<\/p>\n

Employee Departures, Enforcement Risk<\/p>\n

The survey also found that 92% of employers had employees depart to competitors in the past year, and more than half of those cases involved some violation of restrictive covenants or misuse of confidential information.<\/p>\n

In response, 95% of affected employers took action, most commonly a cease-and-desist letter, and 35% pursued litigation.<\/p>\n

Unlawful DEI practices ranked as employers\u2019 top concern related to U.S. Department of Justice activity.<\/p>\n

On enforcement, unlawful DEI practices ranked as employers\u2019 top concern related to U.S. Department of Justice activity (35%), followed by cybersecurity violations (28%).<\/p>\n

False Claims Act recoveries hit $6.8 billion in fiscal 2025\u2014roughly double the prior year\u2014much of it driven by whistleblower-initiated suits, a trend Littler says is expanding employer exposure beyond traditional government-contracting sectors.<\/p>\n

Taken together, the findings suggest employers are settling into a \u201cnew normal\u201d around immigration and DEI enforcement while turning fresh attention\u2014and resources\u2014toward managing the legal and operational risks of a rapidly AI-integrated workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. employers are shifting their regulatory worries toward artificial intelligence and data privacy according to law firm Littler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,11680,10190,68587,1138],"class_list":["post-139030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-dei","tag-employment-law","tag-employment-verification","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}