Survey finds most workers feel anxious as employers push everyday AI use
Artificial intelligence is saving workers time on paper — but it is also fuelling anxiety, mental fatigue and mistrust as employers push it deeper into everyday work.
According to CNBC, a January survey from AI consulting firm Section found that 74 percent of C‑suite leaders felt “excited” about AI, while 68 percent of individual contributors said they felt “anxious or overwhelmed.”
Several leaders of major companies now expect employees to use AI, with Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke calling it a “fundamental expectation” for workers and a September 2025 AI Resume Builder survey finding that 24 percent of companies require AI use across all roles.
CNBC reported that a January Workday survey found 85 percent of employees said AI saved them between one and seven hours a week, but those same workers said they lost 40 percent of that time correcting, rewriting or fact‑checking AI output.
Recruiter Linda Le told the outlet that “everyone talks about AI boosting productivity” but not about the time workers spend “babysitting the output.”
She said AI “is not the magic bullet people think it is” and that any perceived efficiency comes from humans operating the tools, catching mistakes and doing the behind‑the‑scenes work.
The same article said that Le saw AI tools overstate how well candidates matched job descriptions and misclassify strong applicants as poor fits, forcing her to “constantly go back and redo everything.”
Dennis Stolle, head of applied psychology at the American Psychological Association, told the outlet that knowing AI is prone to mistakes “adds another layer of anxiety for employees,” who may fear consequences if they miss an AI‑driven error.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the BBC in November 2025 that AI models are “prone to errors” and said people “have to learn to use these tools for what they’re good at, and not blindly trust everything they say.”
The learning curve adds to the load.
CNBC reported that digital PR strategist Devin Boudreaux has spent the past year and a half training custom AI models to help with his work, but said initial output is not “that great” and requires him to “constantly tell it what it’s doing right, what it’s doing wrong.”
At a previous job, he felt pressure from higher‑ups to use AI even though the company did not provide training or time to learn; instead, a friend taught him outside work.
The Section survey found only 27 percent of individual contributors received company AI training and just 32 percent reported “clear access” to AI tools.
Stolle told CNBC that employees “are as busy as they can possibly be during the work day,” then feel they must spend evenings learning AI to “keep up and make the next day even more busy.”
Mental strain is emerging as a distinct risk.
CNBC reported that a Boston Consulting Group study found workers who frequently use AI experience higher mental fatigue, more mistakes and greater difficulty making decisions, a pattern researchers called “AI brain fry.”
Workers using three or more AI agents in their workflow were more likely to suffer mental fog than those using one or two, and tasks with high oversight demands required 14 percent more mental effort and caused a 12 percent increase in mental fatigue.
Stolle compared the experience to “spinning plates,” saying people juggle multiple tools and “feel like if they stop paying attention to any one of them, something is going to drop.”
Friction and mistrust are also rising.
A MetLife report found that 80 percent of human resources decision‑makers said AI tools are part of everyday tasks and 83 percent said AI helps employees work faster, but 67 percent said AI is “creating new points of friction and mistrust.”
CNBC reported that 61 percent of employees in the study worried about ethical and safety risks such as bias and misinformation, 59 percent feared AI would make their jobs obsolete and 24 percent felt they needed to compete with AI at work.
Another survey from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab found that 53 percent of US workers admitted turning in “workslop,” defined as “AI-generated content that looks good, but lacks substance,” and about 40 percent said they had received it in the last month.
Canadian data show a mixed picture on collaboration.
Financial Post reported that an Express Employment Professionals–Harris Poll survey found 67 percent of Canadian companies said AI made employees more productive when working together and 55 percent said it improved real‑time collaboration.
Yet the same article said 89 percent of companies were uneasy about AI’s growing role, with 55 percent worried it could eventually replace the need for collaboration and 40 percent fearing reduced communication between employees.
The Post quoted Express Employment International CEO Bob Funk Jr. as saying that AI can streamline work by removing repetitive tasks and clearing roadblocks, but it should “never replace the creativity and trust that come from people working together.”
Wealth Professional reported that Canadian technology entrepreneur Yanik Guillemette described AI as moving from a productivity tool to “strategic infrastructure” that will help organisations understand data, support decision‑making and improve the employee experience.
He told Wealth Professional that “artificial intelligence should ultimately empower people” and said the most successful organisations will use AI “to enhance human capabilities rather than attempting to replace them.”
