{"slug": "ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality", "title": "'AI Anxiety' Is a New Workplace Reality", "summary": "A new phenomenon called 'AI anxiety' is affecting workers worldwide, driven by fears that artificial intelligence will replace jobs. Australian doctor Grant Blashki described it as a persistent unease about rapid technological change. A Microsoft analysis identified jobs like interpreters and customer service representatives as highly susceptible to AI, while hands-on roles like plumbers are less threatened.", "body_md": "######\n[Artificial Intelligence](/us/basics/artificial-intelligence)\n\n# 'AI Anxiety' Is a New Workplace Reality\n\n## Understandable concerns about job loss are part of today's working landscape.\n\nPosted June 23, 2026\n[\nReviewed by Margaret Foley\n](/us/docs/editorial-process)\n\nAn Australian doctor recently noted that a patient said to him, \"I think I've got [anxiety](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anxiety) about AI.\"\n\nThese days, that feeling is all too common. As the doctor, Grant Blashki, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne, [discussed](https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/i-think-i-have-ai-anxiety) in a university publication, the individual wasn't experiencing a panic attack or clinical anxiety. Rather, it was more like a \"persistent sense of unease.\"\n\nIt was more a feeling \"that the world is changing very quickly, that the systems we live within are being redesigned around us and that most of us don't feel particularly consulted or prepared.\"\n\nThis was a nice, concise summary of what I believe an awful lot of employees across the globe are experiencing. And it isn't surprising; a substantive loss of control at work can easily be an anxiety-producing situation.\n\n## Understandable Fears\n\nUncertainty, whether it comes in the form of a new CEO, a reorganization, or a game-changing technology like [artificial intelligence](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/artificial-intelligence), is naturally disturbing to employees. Why wouldn't it be? In the blink of an eye, one's livelihood can be affected.\n\nWhile a number of aspects of AI are unsettling—its potential for deepfake scams, unwanted surveillance and personal privacy infringements, etc.—the overarching concern affecting workers today involves job loss.\n\nIt involves the understandable [fear](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/fear) that AI may be able to do many jobs better than humans. Or, if not always better, then at least satisfactorily and often more cost-effectively.\n\nLet's take a quick look at what kind of jobs appear to be more vulnerable to AI takeover, and which jobs aren't.\n\n## Job Applicability\n\nAt this point, the consensus is that jobs involving functions, for example, like writing, some computer coding, and routine levels of customer service, may well be susceptible to being handled by AI.\n\nAt the other end of the spectrum, jobs involving a high level of hands-on, not-easily-substituted human activity seem less susceptible to AI replacement. To use a few heavy-handed examples, it's difficult to imagine AI replacing a plumber fixing a clogged toilet, a roofer replacing leaky shingles, or a surgeon repairing a hernia.\n\nHowever, given generative AI's ability to grab and digest vast amounts of copy and \"learn\" to write, it's not *at all* difficult to imagine AI doing technical writing, preparing [marketing](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/consumer-behavior) materials, how-to brochures, and so on.\n\nTo put a bit more meat on these occupational bones, last year Microsoft did a [broad analysis](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07935) of specifically what jobs appeared to be most and least threatened by AI—jobs with high and low \"AI applicability\" scores. They came up with [40 jobs](https://www.moneytalksnews.com/jobs-by-ai-applicability-microsoft/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=x&utm_campaign=23911574803&utm_content=&utm_placement=&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23911576549&gbraid=0AAAAADl-GcVBix8Jm7u8Dk1TmVJOXlXyD&gclid=CjwKCAjwuuPRBhAnEiwA2Ji8eshZMqjtZLKuAbmIlJw_hxVbYxKipcQMUMz5VJliN4dX9lWLPx2ubBoCoZ8QAvD_BwE) of each type; below are their top 10 in each category.\n\n*High AI applicability*\n\n- Interpreters and translators\n- Historians\n- Passenger attendants\n- Sales representatives of services\n- Writers and authors\n- Customer service representatives\n- CNC (computer numerical control) tool programmers\n- Telephone operators\n- Ticket agents and travel clerks\n- Broadcast announcers and radio DJs\n\n*Low AI applicability*\n\n- Phlebotomists\n- Nursing assistants\n- Hazardous materials removal workers\n- Helpers of painters, plasterers, and stucco masons\n- Embalmers\n- Plant and system operators\n- Oral and maxillofacial surgeons\n- Automotive glass installers and repairers\n- Ship engineers\n- Tire repairers and changers\n\n## Clouds on the Horizon\n\nWhether or not this Microsoft list proves accurate (and I definitely wouldn't take anything on it as immutable truth), one does see clear patterns emerging. Of course, individual companies and managements *do* have considerable latitude in how they choose to implement AI. Or not.\n\nBut there's no doubt for employees that AI has become a storm cloud on the horizon, and it's becoming part of the working landscape, one that workers and managers will both have to learn to navigate.\n\nReferences\n\nBlashki, G. (February 12, 2026). 'I think I have AI anxiety.' *Pursuit*. The University of Melbourne. [https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/i-think-i-have-ai-anxiety](https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/i-think-i-have-ai-anxiety)\n\nTomlinson, K., Jaffe, S., Wang, W., Counts, S., & Suri, S. (2025). Working with AI: measuring the applicability of generative AI to occupations. *arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.07935*.\n\nKissell, C. (August 1, 2025). 40 Jobs Most Threatened by AI—and the Safest Jobs—According to Microsoft. *MoneyTalksNews*. [https://www.moneytalksnews.com/jobs-by-ai-applicability-microsoft/](https://www.moneytalksnews.com/jobs-by-ai-applicability-microsoft/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality", "canonical_source": "https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-of-the-manager/202606/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality", "published_at": "2026-06-23 19:27:13+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-24 00:23:23.009622+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-safety", "ai-ethics", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "Grant Blashki", "University of Melbourne", "Margaret Foley"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-anxiety-is-a-new-workplace-reality.jsonld"}}