Tech firms aren’t just encouraging their workers to use AI. They’re enforcing it.

. Employees get an AI competency score from one to five—scoring a five if they create systems that improve the workflow of others. He has also created a new award: Whoever comes up with the most effective AI-driven process wins a vacation stipend worth several thousand dollars.He won’t consider hiring candidates without AI fluency.

(During interviews, two people sit in to evaluate AI skills.) Candidates interviewing with Conductor can expect to be tested on their ability to solve sample problems using AI. They are asked to explain their choice of tool, the prompts they used and how they would have done things differently six months ago.Around 42% of tech-industry workers said their direct manager expects AI use in day-to-day work as of last October, up from 32% just eight months before, according to a survey from AI consulting firm Section.

And nearly half of tech and telecom companies are already reporting a positive return on their generative-AI investments, compared with 35% across all industries, according to a recent survey by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and market research consulting firm GBK Collective.Even in an industry that tends to drive workplace trends, AI adoption hasn’t been easy. Tech workers have many of the same feelings about AI as the broader population, including skepticism about how much time it’s actually saving them.

There’s also the added anxiety of hearing their own CEOs talking about how AI will ultimately lead to smaller workforces.“In tech it’s amplified,” says Jeremy Korst, a co-author of the Wharton report. “Do we really think employees are going to broadly adopt this if they believe it’s going to cause them to eventually lose their job?”Companies can mandate and