Employees Are Relying on AI for Personal Support. That’s Risky

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We’ve entered a new era of organizational life when, for the first time in history, people can turn to something other than a fellow human for conversation and support during the workday. They now can engage with AI. But how are employees using AI for social purposes? How is that usage affecting them? In our ongoing research we’ve been trying to answer those questions and understand where this new dynamic might take us in the future.

The problem that sparked this study is loneliness—specifically, the loneliness that many employees around the world feel at work every day. It has significant business consequences, including lower job satisfaction, performance, and retention. We wondered if people might be assuaging it by talking to generative and agentic forms of AI at work. After all, we’ve seen how quickly people have become attached to their AI friends, romantic partners, and therapists.

To find out, the author studied knowledge workers who were relatively far along the AI adoption curve; nearly all of them used it weekly, daily, or even hourly in their jobs.  To avoid fraying the social fabric of organizations, the authors encourage leaders to harness AI in five specific ways that will prioritize and promote connections to humans—not to the technology.

How People Relate to Bots?  In fact, the authors were surprised by how common it was for employees to use AI for the kinds of social support once provided only by humans. Three-quarters (74%) of participants reported using AI for at least one form of it at work. Here’s how they employed AI in each area:  Career development, Personal growth, Friendship, and Emotional support.

Warning Signs Ahead.  There are four reasons human relationships in organizations could suffer as AI adoption increases.  First, AI can depopulate the workplace and create more isolation.  Second, AI can cause individuals’ social skills to atrophy and lower their motivation to connect with humans. Talking with an always reachable, sycophantic AI chatbot can be more appealing than conversing with real people.  Third, by removing the need to go to colleagues for help, AI can undermine opportunities to build trust.  And fourth, despite its lifelike capabilities, AI is indeed artificial and thus capable of triggering a sense of existential loneliness.

Despite these long-term risks, only 33% of the participants in the study had received any leadership guidance or information about how AI might affect their work relationships. It appears that organizations are now so focused on AI’s instrumental gains that they’re ignoring its potential interpersonal costs. That must change. The authors argued previously that alleviating workplace loneliness requires sustained managerial attention to structures, culture, and incentives. That imperative now extends to the impact of AI on work relationships.

How to Ensure AI Doesn’t Weaken Human Connections.  It is possible to both integrate AI into work and protect and nurture human connections. Inspired by authors’ research and the emerging practices of some far-thinking organizations, the authors recommend five measures:  Monitor the social impact of AI adoption, Establish guidelines for when and how AI can be used to replace human interactions, Design AI to promote human interaction, Use AI to organize relationship-building activities, and Train employees how to apply AI in healthful ways.

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