5 Ways AI Is Undermining Employee Engagement And What To Do About It

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AI can be great for many things at work: handling mundane tasks, increasing efficiency and helping us prioritize the work that genuinely requires a human touch. At the same time, a mounting body of evidence suggests that AI is driving an employee engagement crisis that threatens the future of work.

A 2025 peer-reviewed study in Behavioral Sciences found that employee-AI collaboration in the workplace can increase feelings of loneliness, exacerbating emotional fatigue and leading to behaviors that directly erode engagement at work. Employees sense it too. Over half of all workers are worried, and 33% across all age groups (40% among 18- to 29-year-olds) are overwhelmed, about how AI will impact the future of work, according to a 2024 Pew Research survey of U.S. workers.

Leaders who blindly push AI adoption risk massively weakening the core drivers of employee engagement: growth opportunities, interpersonal skills, human connection and purpose. Here are five ways AI is eroding employee engagement, and what conscientious leaders can do about it.

1. AI Is Blocking Career Growth For Young Professionals.  What leaders can do: Strengthen team integration during the first 90 days for new hires, especially young professionals. Protect time for all employees to provide and receive mentorship (including “reverse mentoring,” where younger workers mentor more senior colleagues), rather than assuming it will happen organically.
2. Employees Are Overloaded.  What leaders can do: Leverage the cost savings to decrease workload for the remaining team members. Implement protected focus time and meeting-free days for all team members. If people feel they are making progress and having an actual impact at work, employee engagement will bounce back.
3. AI Is Making Work Overly Transactional.  What leaders can do: Implement weekly or monthly meaning-making practices during team meetings (e.g., having team members share what brought them to the work they do). Redefine purpose around what humans uniquely contribute. Celebrate human growth and wins (including learning through failure) over efficiency- and productivity-based achievements.
4. AI Collaboration Is Fueling Workplace Loneliness.  What leaders can do: Create more opportunities for employees to interact and bond in social, non-work-related ways. Track and measure team connections and the strength of team relationships alongside productivity. 
5. AI Is Jeopardizing Mission-Critical Human Skills.  What leaders can do: Invest in professional and leadership development, specifically around human skills. Make interpersonal skill-building explicit, valued and rewarded by integrating it into everyone’s training and growth plans.

Protecting Employee Engagement As AI Transforms Work.  Growth opportunities, human connection and interpersonal capabilities drive employee engagement, which, in turn, jeopardizes the fiscal bottom line. When AI adoption undermines these drivers, employee engagement suffers and work becomes demoralizing and painful for everyone.  But it’s not all bad news. All these problems are solvable. Conscientious leaders who invest in learning and development, protect time for human connection and track engagement alongside productivity will reap the benefits of AI adoption without sacrificing their people or their mid- and long-term bottom line.

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