Everyone is talking about AI, but far from everyone understands what it is or what it will do to their work. That creates uncertainty. People wonder whether they can keep up, whether their work will still be needed, and whether they are doing something wrong when they use it. Those questions cost energy, even when nobody asks them out loud.
Half of all workers are worried
Pew Research asked more than 5,000 American workers how they see AI at work. Just over half (52%) are worried about how AI will be used in the future. Only 36% feel hopeful about it, and a third feel overwhelmed (Pew Research, 2025).
Gallup sees the same thing. Almost one in five American employees (18%) think their own job will disappear within five years because of technology such as AI. In organisations that have already introduced AI, that rises to 23% (Gallup, 2026). Seeing AI up close doesn’t make the worry smaller.
Why uncertainty costs energy
Engaged people have energy, give their all to their work and get absorbed in it. In engagement research, these are called vigour, dedication and absorption. Uncertainty about AI affects all three.
Worrying about your future uses up energy that no longer goes into the work. If you don’t know whether your job will still exist in a few years, it is hard to commit to it fully. And people who are afraid of making mistakes with a new tool don’t dare to experiment, so they get less absorbed in the work.
A study among 600 workers shows how this works. People who feel competent with AI are more engaged and more satisfied. People who feel stressed by AI become exhausted sooner (Chuang and colleagues, 2025). So how confident people feel with AI matters a great deal.
Understanding gives grip
A 2026 study followed more than 1,100 employees for a year. At the start, the researchers measured how much they understood about AI. A year later, those who knew more about AI were more engaged. That held even after taking into account how often they used AI and how engaged they were at the start. The researchers saw two explanations. People who understand AI gain more confidence in what they can do. And they are less likely to burn out (Liu and colleagues, 2026).
This study shows a connection over time, not hard proof that one causes the other. It does fit with what Boston Consulting Group found in a survey of more than 10,000 employees in eleven countries. Employees who understand how AI agents work (AI that carries out tasks on its own) see them less as a threat and more as a helpful colleague. Yet only a third of employees say they have been properly trained (BCG, 2025).
The European Commission also asks organisations to support the AI knowledge of their people (European Commission). Use that training to make people more confident, with examples from their own work.
AI mainly changes tasks
People who fear AI often picture whole professions disappearing. Research paints a different picture. According to the International Labour Organization, one in four people work in an occupation where generative AI can change something. Only 3.3% are in the group with the highest exposure. Most occupations consist of tasks that still need people, so above all the content of the work changes (ILO, 2025).
Researchers from MIT, Yale and Northwestern tracked AI in American companies from 2010 to 2023. When AI can do almost all the tasks of a role, the number of people in that role falls by about 14%. When AI affects only a few tasks, the number of jobs in that role can actually grow. People then focus on work AI is less good at, such as critical thinking and coming up with new ideas (MIT Sloan, 2025). Talking about tasks instead of professions is more realistic, and it gives people more peace of mind.
Berd: make it small
Berd Warmelts of IMPACT on the Job sees just about everything in teams. People who become uncertain, and people who become enthusiastic. Those who are anxious mostly worry about three things: their own work, the enjoyment they get from it, and the meaning that remains when the work disappears or changes.
“If you’ve worked with Excel for twenty years and it’s suddenly taken away from you, while it’s your certainty and your enjoyment, that’s pretty unpleasant,” says Berd. Others are glad AI takes over the chores they enjoy less. Either way, it affects a lot of people, and it makes many of them uncertain about their own future. That touches their sense of safety, and with it their engagement.
Berd advises making it small. The pictures of the future are big and sometimes intense, with whole processes disappearing. So don’t talk about whole professions (“there will be no work left in accountancy”), talk about tasks. Which tasks in your work could AI take over? That happens step by step, not all at once. “Agree, for example, that every six months you hand over around 20% of someone’s work,” says Berd. “And then look together at how to fill that 20% with something worthwhile again.” It helps when people have a hand on the wheel themselves. That way they keep a grip on how their own work changes.
How to help your team get a grip
- Make the worry something you can talk about. Ask people what they think of AI, as well as whether they use it. Worries you know about, you can take seriously.
- Explain what AI can and cannot do. A lot of fear comes from not knowing. A short, practical explanation turns AI from a vague danger back into a tool.
- Let people practise safely. Give room to try things without mistakes having immediate consequences. People who find out for themselves what works gain confidence.
- Be honest about what is changing. Don’t promise that everything will stay the same. Say what you know, what you don’t know yet, and how you will involve people.
- Make it small and let people steer. Talk about tasks instead of whole roles, and go step by step. Decide together which part of the work AI will take over in the coming months, and how the time that frees up becomes worthwhile again.
Know how the energy in your team is doing
Uncertainty about AI rarely comes up by itself in the team meeting. With the Employee Engagement Survey by Leiders.nl, you see per team how much vigour and dedication there is. That way you know where uncertainty is costing energy and where you can help.
Also read Is AI draining the energy from your team? about workload and mental fatigue caused by AI.
