Worker engagement in the U.S. has dropped below 30%, to its lowest level since 2011, Gallup reports .
Engagement dropped two points from last quarter, equivalent to roughly 3.2 million fewer engaged workers. The share of “actively disengaged” workers rose from 17% to 18%.
The largest decline was among fully remote workers, whose engagement fell five points. The drop was sharpest among remote and hybrid employees at organizations that have adopted AI . Meanwhile, engagement among onsite workers fell only about 1 point.
The results “raise questions about whether communication and manager support are keeping pace with AI integration,” the report states, noting that the percentage of employees who strongly agreed they knew what was expected of them at work fell three points, to 46%.
The percentage who strongly agreed that their supervisor or someone at work cares about them as a person also fell three points, from 40% to 37%.
While Gallup’s July survey found engagement to be considerably higher at organizations that have adopted AI, this advantage narrowed considerably in the latest edition, at least for remote and hybrid workers.
In Q2 2026, exclusively remote employees in AI-integrated organizations had five points higher engagement than those at other organizations, and hybrid employees in AI-integrated organizations had an eight-point advantage. Those differences fell to just 2 points in Q3.
The report suggests a lack of manager support may be to blame, noting that “active manager support” had the strongest correlation with engagement among the various “AI-related factors” measured in the survey.
This may be especially true for hybrid and remote employees, “who may have fewer opportunities for informal, in-person communication.”
Gallup began tracking employee engagement in 2000, finding that only 26% of U.S. workers were engaged. Engagement peaked at 36% in 2020 before dropping to 31% in 2024 and 29% this quarter.
Gallup measures engagement using a composite of 12 characteristics, among them “role clarity,” “resource availability,” and “recognition for good work.”
