Survey: AI Has 20% of Workers Feeling Anxious or Disengaged From Their Jobs
Key Highlights
- More than 50% of workers are unsure about AI's long-term impact on their careers, presenting a key opportunity for leadership to influence perceptions.
- Employees most want clear communication about AI's role and access to training programs to boost confidence and engagement.
- Trust and organizational culture are critical; effective AI adoption depends on fostering psychological safety and encouraging experimentation.
More than half of workers are still making up their minds about whether artificial intelligence tools will be a positive factor in their career paths — and that is opening a massive door for leaders when it comes to training and building engagement.
A new report from Endeavor Business Intelligence, the research arm of ExecutiveEDGE parent company EndeavorB2B, shows that nearly one in five professionals has become less confident in their long-term career growth since AI has entered the workplace in earnest. Conversely, 26% said they are at least slightly more upbeat about their careers.
That leaves 55% of respondents saying they feel, only three years after ChatGPT was formally rolled out, the same about their long-term employment picture as before. Some of those workers are unlikely to need to move from that standpoint — one survey respondent noted that, “as long as I can turn a wrench, then I doubt AI takes my job” — but plenty of others will need to adapt to a working world with AI, whether they want to or not.
And a good number aren’t happy about that: Of the almost 500 respondents, 20% said they feel somewhat or significantly anxious about or disengaged from their work since their organizations have adopted AI tools. Another 4% said they are actively considering leaving their positions because of AI.
Get the report
EBI polled nearly 500 people across a wide range of industries in late November and early December. To download the full report, which includes questions about fears that AI will altogether eliminate some jobs as well as more than two dozen representative comments from respondents, visit this page on the EBI blog.
On the flip side, 18% of respondents reported feeling more engaged with their work thanks to the technology. And nearly half are actively pursuing AI training or certifications (15%) or planning to do so soon (29%). Those data points, EBI analysts wrote, “highlight a growing awareness of the need to upskill, while also showing that uncertainty about the best path forward remains common” — a sentiment that also shows up in 23% of respondents saying they would like to be involved in decisions and/or pilot programs involving AI.
More broadly, the survey brings to the surface a huge opportunity for leadership teams to shape and upgrade their workforces for the next generation of work and improve the trust employees have in the direction of their organizations. When asked what would most improve their career confidence around AI, employees’ most common answers were getting clear communication about AI’s impact on their roles (35%) and having access to training programs (33%). Another 20% said they’d welcome opportunities to transition into AI-related roles.
“There’s a much-needed, fast-growing appetite for embracing AI tools among a significant part of the workforce,” said Paul Mattioli, executive vice president of business insights and education at EndeavorB2B. “Leaders who can authentically integrate AI by delivering tools that both drive strategic value while elevating individual skills will set themselves apart in a market that’s going through massive change, which will not let up over the next decade and beyond.”
The key to success amid that change is to build trust throughout a business about how AI will affect its employees, something the common response about clear communication illustrates from those surveyed by EBI. A higher level of trust will lay the foundation for training that truly works.
There’s a lot of work to be done on that front, recent research from The Conference Board shows. When the business group asked more than 200 enterprise leaders and nearly 700 employees around the world whether they thought their organizations’ human capital teams were providing effective training and support, 49% of employees said no. Interestingly, 41% of leaders also said they need to do better.
“Lack of trust, curiosity and experimentation, and psychological safety have a huge impact on AI implementations,” Conference Board analysts wrote in their report, which can be downloaded here. “AI tools enable fast prototyping and iteration for a much wider swath of employees than was previously possible, but the opportunities this affords will fail to live up to their potential unless an organization has a culture that encourages and supports innovation. Employees will be a key part of building this culture.”
That thought echoes an idea Charlie Apigian, lead data and AI strategist at accounting and advisory firm LBMC, told ExecutiveEDGE last fall. Implementing AI isn’t the strategy. The way to go is using it to push more quickly and more broadly on strategic goals that more tightly connect people to their organizations.
“Get out of the noise and talk about why we are who we are,” Apigian said he pushes executive teams to consider. “Find that core and then stay true to it. And then adopt AI.”
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Contributor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde joined EndeavorB2B in September 2021 to cover public companies, markets, and economic trends primarily for IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World, and Healthcare Innovation. His work focuses on strategy, leadership, capital spending, and mergers and acquisitions, and he also works with Endeavor Business Intelligence on surveys and data projects.
Geert has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance, and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic by an average of more than 15% annually before joining Endeavor.
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