AI and Mental Health: How Automation is Speeding Up Work but Slowing Down Wellbeing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) promised to make work faster, smarter, and more efficient, but for many employees, it has brought a quiet storm — anxiety, fatigue, and fear of irrelevance.
While companies celebrate AI-powered productivity, workers across industries are facing what experts now call “treadmill anxiety” — the feeling of running endlessly just to stay relevant.

Across India and globally, professionals from coders and designers to teachers and marketers are juggling two full-time jobs: doing their work and learning how to keep it.

The Emotional Cost of Endless Upskilling

A 2025 Acta Psychologica study (Chen et al.) revealed that continuous learning demands and fear of obsolescence are leading to emotional exhaustion and job disengagement.

“No amount of effort will keep you permanently relevant,” the study notes — a belief that drains passion and professional identity.

Tech consultant Ankur Agrawal calls it a “triple whammy”:

1. Pressure to master new AI tools,

2. Constant anxiety about job loss, and

3. Erosion of hard-earned expertise.

This, he warns, is eroding people’s confidence, identity, and mental health in the digital age.

Data Confirms the Burnout

Reports from leading research bodies paint a concerning picture:

• OECD (2024) – 3 in 5 workers fear losing their job to AI within the next decade.

• McKinsey (2025) – While firms gain productivity, few invest in emotional and psychological safety.

• KPMG & University of Melbourne (2025) – 57% of workers hide AI usage from managers; only 47% receive proper AI training.

• Institute for the Future of Work – Rapid tech rollouts without support increase job insecurity and emotional stress.

AI may be increasing productivity, but human satisfaction is falling behind.

Rethinking AI Adoption and Leadership

Ankur Agrawal argues that AI anxiety isn’t an individual weakness, it’s an organizational design flaw.

“Leaders must create environments where employees can admit confusion, ask questions, and learn at a human pace,” he says.

He urges companies to:

• Integrate upskilling time into paid work hours,

• Offer structured mentorship, and

• Limit simultaneous tool rollouts to reduce cognitive overload.

Empathy, he stresses, must go hand-in-hand with systemic changes in how work is structured.

Can Companies Build a Kinder AI Era?

The race for automation cannot be stopped, but it can be made humane.
Organisations can slow the emotional toll of AI transitions through small but significant actions — prioritising clarity, pacing, and employee well-being over relentless adoption.

Agrawal concludes, “The real conflict is treating a design problem as an adaptation problem — asking people to keep coping instead of redesigning how work works.”

How to Reskill Humanely: Practical Solutions

✅ Pace AI adoption — Pilot, then scale.
✅ Paid upskilling time — Make learning part of work, not overtime.
✅ Limit change fatigue — Avoid multiple new tools at once.
✅ Mentorship models — Pair seniors and juniors for real-time learning.
✅ Human judgement first — Keep ethical and creative tasks human-led.
✅ Wellbeing tracking — Measure stress and learning satisfaction.
✅ Transparency — Publish clear AI-use policies.
✅ Emotional recovery — Let teams mourn lost mastery and rebuild confidence.

The Takeaway

If balanced wisely, AI can empower creativity and free people from repetitive work.
But without mindful policies, it risks draining passion and mental health from an entire generation.

The question now isn’t whether AI will change how we work — it already has.
The real question is whether we can make it change us without breaking us.