Staying Human in the AI Wave: The Emotional Toll of a Changing Workplace
More tech jobs have been cut in the first half of 2026 than in almost any comparable stretch on record, and for the first time, artificial intelligence (AI) - not a recession or a merger - is the reason most often cited. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, AI has led all stated reasons for job cuts for three consecutive months, reaching its highest single-month total since the firm began tracking the metric. This is not a distant statistic. In my practice, it is showing up as a very specific kind of exhaustion in the people sitting across from me. Over the past several months I have sat down with employees, executives, and leaders across the technology sector to understand not just what is changing in their work, but what they are experiencing emotionally, mentally, relationally, and physically as that change unfolds.
What I heard was not a simple fear of the unknown. It was far more layered than that.
Many people are curious. Some are energized. Several described the importance of learning quickly, staying engaged, and embracing the shift rather than resisting it. But alongside that openness, I also heard fatigue, uncertainty, and pressure - people trying to stay grounded while quietly wondering what this change may mean for their role, their security, their value, and their future.
For many, the question is not simply, What will AI do?
What seems to be surfacing underneath is more personal:
Where do I fit now? Will what I offer still matter?
A New Wave of Change
AI is not the first major shift to reshape technology-driven work - new tools, systems, and expectations have always required adaptation.
What may be different this time is the scale and visibility of the disruption. Industry trackers estimate that well over 150,000 tech roles were eliminated in the first half of 2026 alone, with AI cited as a contributing factor in more than half of those events. The technology itself is advancing quickly, but so is the noise around it: predictions, pressure to adopt, public uncertainty about what comes next. That combination can make the ground feel less steady, even for people whose jobs are not directly at risk.
AI is not only changing how tasks are completed. It is pressing many people to reconsider what makes their contribution uniquely human. When a tool can summarize, write, code, design, analyze, or produce at a speed no person can match, the question shifts from whether humans are useful to where human discernment is most needed.
That is a more complex question - one that can feel unsettling and clarifying at once.
This piece isn't about whether AI is good or bad - it's about how people are making sense of themselves, their work, and their future amid rapid change.
When Work Starts to Feel Unsteady
For many people, work is tied to identity, stability, purpose, self-worth, and how they measure success. It is also connected to the ability to provide, contribute, and build a meaningful future.
The data bears this out. Research consistently links job insecurity to psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion. The American Psychological Association's 2025 Work in America survey found that job insecurity is significantly affecting the stress levels of 54% of U.S. workers - and that number climbs even higher among younger employees.
Emerging research specific to AI is beginning to reflect a similar pattern. A 2025 study found that AI awareness - the sense that one's job could be replaced by AI - predicts emotional exhaustion, largely through the job insecurity and family strain it creates. In other words, it's not AI itself that feels stressful. It's what AI comes to represent: uncertainty, possible displacement, and questions about the future.
From a nervous system perspective, uncertainty can function like an ongoing stressor. When the brain cannot clearly determine whether a situation is safe or threatening, it often keeps scanning for information. This frequently shows up as vigilance: the mind looks for clues, the body braces. Employees may replay conversations, overinterpret organizational changes, or feel a sense of dread before announcements, leadership updates, or performance conversations. Clinically, this can present as disrupted sleep, reduced concentration, irritability, muscle tension, fatigue, or emotional withdrawal. It may also present as over-functioning: working longer hours, constantly upskilling, monitoring risk, and trying to become indispensable. Sometimes people minimize this because they tell themselves, nothing bad has actually happened yet. But the body often responds not only to what has happened, but to what feels possible. That is why anxiety can surface even before a concrete loss occurs - the perceived loss may be less visible: predictability, trust, control, or confidence in what comes next. That kind of uncertainty deserves real care and attention, not dismissal.
The Pressure to Keep Up
Many people in technology-driven spaces understand that adaptability matters. Learning, staying current, and responding to change are often built into the work itself. Several people I interviewed spoke about the need to embrace AI, stay educated, and learn to work with it rather than resist it. There is wisdom in that. But adaptation becomes costly when the pace is constant and the stakes feel personal. The pressure is not only to learn - it is to learn quickly, stay relevant, differentiate yourself, manage uncertainty, and remain productive, all at once.
That raises an important question: what does it cost us to live in constant pursuit of staying ahead? When the nervous system is trained to live in urgency, even genuine opportunities can begin to register as threats, and growth becomes harder to sustain when it is driven primarily by fear rather than curiosity.
This does not mean the answer is to stop learning. It means examining the posture from which the learning happens: Is this coming from curiosity and purpose, or from panic and comparison?
A person can be capable and still feel anxious, resilient and still need support. Naming that complexity is not weakness. It is an accurate account of the full picture.
Identity, Worth, and the Fear of Becoming Replaceable
Beneath many of these conversations was an unspoken fear: What if what I offer is no longer enough?
For people who have spent years developing expertise, the possibility that parts of their work could be automated can touch something deeper than a job description - it can raise questions about worth, identity, and belonging. Who am I if my work changes?
These are not only career questions. They are identity questions, and in high-achieving environments, where people often learn to measure themselves by output and achievement, a threat to those markers can stir fear, self-doubt, and shame. If that describes what you have been carrying, I want to say clearly: that response makes sense, and it is not a sign of failure.
One person described this shift as needing to move from carrying the skill to guiding the machine that produces it. That distinction matters: it suggests the human role is not disappearing, but changing in kind. Value may be shifting from executing every task manually toward knowing what to ask, how to evaluate output, when to question it, and how to apply judgment AI cannot supply.
If value is measured only by speed, output, or efficiency, a machine will always feel threatening. But if value also includes discernment, integrity, lived experience, and the capacity to make meaning, the calculation changes. The deeper work, for many, is learning to reclaim a sense of worth that was never meant to rest on productivity alone.
When Stress Follows You Home
Stress does not clock out just because we do. It follows us home - into the body, the mood, the relationships, and the capacity to rest.
A person may close the laptop and still feel mentally at work: physically present with family but internally preoccupied, more irritable, more withdrawn, less able to access the parts of themselves that usually feel patient or connected. This is not a character flaw. It is frequently a sign that the nervous system has been carrying more than it can metabolize - and that deserves compassion, not self-criticism.
Several people I spoke with described the value of intentional pauses - stepping away from constant input, creating routines, setting clearer boundaries, or choosing not to stay endlessly connected to work updates. In seasons of uncertainty, the body benefits from rhythm and predictability: a consistent morning routine, a real lunch break, time away from screens, movement, or an honest conversation with someone trusted. These practices will not resolve the larger workplace shifts underway, but they can help a person remain grounded and connected to themselves while navigating them.
The Cost of Carrying It Quietly
Many people are managing more than their own uncertainty. Leaders are supporting anxious teams while navigating their own questions. Employees are watching coworkers lose jobs and feeling pressure to be grateful they still have theirs. There is often a culture of silence around this. People may not want to sound negative, appear resistant to change, worry their families, or reveal to coworkers and leadership how anxious they feel - so they carry it quietly. But what goes unnamed tends to grow heavier.
Having a space to name what has been difficult to say out loud creates room to sort through what is fear, what is fact, and what is genuinely within one's control - whether that work is practical (boundaries, communication, career discernment) or deeper (identity, worth, and the belief that value is defined solely by output).
Embracing Change Without Abandoning Yourself
The goal is not to reject change. It is to engage change thoughtfully, without losing connection to yourself. For many, that means learning new tools, staying curious, and asking better questions - recognizing that relevance is less about knowing everything and more about remaining teachable. It also means being honest about limits. You can adapt to what is changing without allowing work to become the center of your entire identity. You can stay informed without constantly scanning for threats. You can care deeply about your career without letting it become the only measure of your worth.
One of the strongest protective factors in a season like this is remembering that identity is larger than career.
You are not only your role. You are not only your productivity. You are not only your title. You are not only your ability to keep up. You are a whole person.
What This Season May Be Asking of Us
This season may be asking more of us than learning another tool. It may be asking us to become more honest about where our worth has been placed, to develop a steadier relationship with uncertainty, and to remember that efficiency is not the same as wisdom.
AI may change what we do. It does not have to decide who we are. That may be one of the most important invitations in this season: to adapt without surrendering our humanity.
Questions Worth Asking
In a season of change, it can help to slow down and ask questions that are not only about performance, but about staying grounded and connected to yourself.
Where am I responding from wisdom, and where am I reacting from fear?
What part of my identity feels most affected by this season of change?
What values do I want to guide me, even as my work changes?
These questions are not about resisting change. They are about moving through change with more clarity.
Staying Human in a Rapidly Changing World
The data is clear that this moment is taking a measurable toll, and I see the same pattern across my caseload. But behind every statistic are people - with responsibilities, relationships, histories, and nervous systems that were not built to sustain constant alert. Change may be moving quickly, but that does not mean we have to lose ourselves in its pace. The goal is not to have every answer right now. It is to stay grounded enough to keep learning, adapting, and caring for the person you are becoming along the way.
If this season has stirred up more than you expected, you do not have to sort through it on your own. If any of this feels familiar, know that this is the work I do - and you don't have to figure it out alone.
References
Challenger, Gray & Christmas. (2026). Job Cuts Report, as cited in TechCrunch, "The running list: major tech layoffs in 2026 where employers cited AI."
Layoffs.fyi / SkillSyncer. (2026). 2026 Tech Layoffs Tracker: Live Updates on Job Cuts & Workforce Reductions.
American Psychological Association. (2025). 2025 Work in America™ Survey: The Experience of Working in America During Times of Change.
Zheng, J., & Zhang, T. (2025). Association between AI awareness and emotional exhaustion: The serial mediation of job insecurity and work interference with family. Behavioral Sciences, 15(4), 401. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15040401
Written by: Maggie Andraws M.A. LMHC
Phone: (425) 200-4372
Email: maggie@novolifecounseling.com