If companies want their staff to use AI, they need to teach them how to use the technology effectively, HR experts advise. And if you are using AI at work, let your boss and colleagues know.Getty Images
If you’re using artificial intelligence at your job, how important is it to get real about it with your boss and your workmates?
“You should absolutely be open about it,” says Sachi Kittur, vice-president of human experience and innovation at the Human Resources Professionals Association, which oversees 24,000 HR professionals and students in Ontario.
Disclosure gets complicated quickly, though. “There’s a problem at a lot of companies because the companies have not evolved their practices to encourage their employees to be open about using AI, or even to help make sure they’re using it effectively,” Ms. Kittur says.
She points to a report released in June 2025 by KPMG Canada which found that 61 per cent of Canadian workers surveyed say they use AI at work, but 56 per cent say that relying too much on the technology has resulted in errors, unchecked outputs and people putting less effort into their work.
The problems with AI disclosure come from lack of understanding and uncertainty among both workers and bosses about what AI rules should be and a lingering fear of where AI is taking us, Ms. Kittur says.
“AI is the new way of working smarter. People who are using it should not be hiding. But workplaces need to build a culture of trust about AI,” she explains.
“Without being open about AI, people will keep it from their managers that they’re using it because they’re afraid it’s going to make them look bad. It’s up to managers and leaders to show their employees and associates when AI helps make work better and more efficient,” she says.
“It does matter whether you say that you’re using AI at work, but there’s no hard and fast rule about when and how,” says Ally MacLellan, director of integrated intelligence and technology at Proof Strategies, a communications firm. Ms. MacLellan also teaches courses about deploying AI for Meltwater Academy, which runs education programs for corporate and institutional clients.
“AI in the workplace is changing so fast that rather than developing rigid rules, we’ve come up with guidelines. You need some flexibility. For example, some of the companies we work with say they absolutely don’t want anyone to use AI, but we point out that everyone already uses spellcheck, which is a crude form of AI,” she explains.
It’s a matter of degree and context how much anyone should disclose about their AI use, she says. “If you’re using AI to lightly edit and clean up an email it’s probably okay not to mention it. But if you’re using, say, an AI platform to develop a storyboard for a presentation, then you should probably disclose this,” Ms. MacLellan says.
In the latter case, workers should think of this kind of advanced AI as a work colleague, she suggests. “If somebody helped you prepare the work, you’d give them credit. In this case the somebody is AI.”
“We tell the people in our courses to take a ‘hamburger’ approach. The AI work can be the hamburger in the middle, but you need human input on either side, like a bun and all the fixings,” she says.
Pamela Lirio, a professor of digital HR at the Université de Montréal, says “disclosure rules and policies are still in the Wild West era in Canada.” However there are some regulations, such as legislation passed in Ontario last year that now requires employers to disclose whether they used AI to screen, select and assess job applicants.
“But in most cases it’s still vague. The employee may be waiting for guidance from the boss and the boss may be waiting for the employee to speak up,” she adds. “Another problem is that there are so many types and degrees of AI use, and it’s changing constantly. We’re still trying to figure out the guardrails for student and academic work in universities.”
Adam Froman, founder and chief executive officer of Delvinia, a digital research firm, says, “you should be upfront about your AI use 100 per cent of the time. But using it for small tasks can be an exception.”
“If you are using it to look for data or to do an outline, you probably don’t need to disclose that you used AI unless someone asks you,” he says.
“But if you are using it in a way that may lead someone to ask about how you did the work, then you should be up front. You can present the work as your own, but you should disclose that you used AI to help,” Mr. Froman says.
“The reality is that AI is going to continue to change the way we work,” says Scott Taber, vice-president at Media Profile, a Toronto-headquartered communications firm. “You need to create an environment where staff can speak openly. Trust, strategy, creativity and relationships will always require human input,” he says.