City of Boston · employee generative-AI survey · 2025
Demand for generative-AI training outran adoption among City of Boston employees.
Spring 2025 survey of more than 20% of the City of Boston's general workforce, excluding Boston Public Schools, Boston Fire, Boston Police, Boston Public Health Commission, and Boston Public Library. Mixed multiple-choice and open-ended items on use frequency, training preferences, and concerns about generative-AI adoption.
78%
of surveyed City of Boston employees wanted formal generative-AI training.
About half described themselves as "very interested."
60% HAD TRIED GENERATIVE AI · 25% USING IT WEEKLY at work.
SAMPLE: more than 20% of the City's general workforce, spring 2025.
Source: City of Boston Analytics Team and Office of Emerging Technology, spring 2025 employee survey · sample: more than 20% of City of Boston employees, excluding Boston Public Schools, Boston Fire, Boston Police, Boston Public Health Commission, and Boston Public Library · aggregated results and questionnaire published December 2025 alongside the 2023 Generative AI Guidelines.
Methodology
The survey was administered by the Boston Analytics Team and the Office of Emerging Technology within the Department of Innovation and Technology, with support from Boston Digital Service. More than 20% of the City's general workforce responded. Uniformed services (Boston Fire and Boston Police), Boston Public Schools, the Boston Public Health Commission, and the Boston Public Library were excluded from this iteration. The instrument combined multiple-choice and open-ended items on use frequency, training preferences, intended use cases, and concerns about generative-AI adoption.
Use today
60% of respondents had tried generative AI at least once. 25% reported using it weekly at work. As a baseline for adoption, 42% of respondents reported lower confidence with new digital tools generally, and 25% reported lower confidence with search engines, indicating that a meaningful share of the workforce begins from a non-power-user starting point.
68.5%
Inaccuracy was the top workforce concern about generative AI
57.6%
Security ranked second
50.6%
Data privacy ranked fourth, behind plagiarism/IP at 53.8%
Concerns
Workforce concerns concentrated heavily on inaccuracy and security. Beyond the three in the strip above, 53.8% flagged plagiarism or intellectual-property concerns, 35.8% bias, 33.1% job displacement, and 30.6% ill-intent or unethical use. Roughly 8% of open-ended responses raised the environmental impact of generative AI, a concern the survey did not explicitly prompt for.
Training demand
78% of respondents said they were interested in formal generative-AI training, with about half (~50%) describing themselves as very interested. The findings inform the City's training curriculum and use-case prioritization, alongside the 2023 Generative AI Guidelines that remain in effect.