Tech & Leadership
AI Anxiety and What You Can Do About It
AI anxiety started showing up everywhere. In one-on-ones with my team, over lunch with friends in different industries, and even at dinner with my wife. The topic was always, “What’s gonna happen to us? Are our jobs safe?”
One friend half-joked that they’re going to start looking into carpentry. Another was talking about getting his finances in order, bracing for a layoff that wasn’t announced yet. A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I’m telling my nephew about AI and the job market. That post was about looking outward, trying to give honest advice to someone entering the workforce.
This one is about looking inward. Because before I can help anyone else with this, I have to deal with my own version of it first.
Sit With It
Vague dread is harder to deal with than bad news.
We fear what we don’t understand. And right now, most people (including us in the tech industry) don’t fully understand what AI actually means for them. So the anxiety doesn’t show up as a specific, articulable fear. It shows up as a fog, a heaviness in conversations, and a vague sense that the ground is shifting and we see where it’ll end up.
That fog is the problem, not AI itself. When something like the AI problem is vague, I can’t do much about it - I gotta figure it out. Otherwise it’ll become background radiation in my life, coloring every decision, every plan, every conversation about the future. “Should I invest in this skill? Is this career path still viable? Should I tell my kids to study something else?”
The first step is just to name what I’m actually afraid of. It’s much easier to solve “I don’t know if my skills will matter next year” than “AI is scary.”
Name It
Hard to deal with something I haven’t identified yet.
When I sat with my own anxiety, I realized it wasn’t one thing. It was several things tangled together, and each one needed a different response:
“I’ll be replaced.” This one felt like an identity threat. Some of my sense of worth has been tied to the work I produce, and if a machine can produce it faster, what does that say about me? But here’s what I keep coming back to: my value wasn’t just in the output. It was in the judgment that shaped it, the relationships that informed it, and the context that made it the right output instead of just an output.
“I can’t protect the people I’m responsible for.” As a manager, this one hits different. I feel responsible for my team’s livelihoods, but I don’t always control the decisions that affect headcount. The honest move has been to separate what I can influence (making my team’s impact visible, investing in their growth, advocating loudly) from what I can’t. That separation helped me focus my energy where it actually matters.
“I can’t keep up.” This is more about fatigue. The pace of change in the AI world is genuinely exhausting, and every week there’s a new tool, a new model, a new paradigm. I’ve been telling myself that I don’t need to master all of it, but I do need to stay curious about the parts that matter to my work and give myself permission to ignore the rest.
Reframe It
Panic doesn’t help me swim. But knowing which way is up does.
Here’s the shift that helped me: fear is a reaction, but courage is a decision. We don’t have to be defined by what’s happening to us. We get to be defined by how we respond to it.
I know that sounds like a poster on a dentist’s wall, but it actually shapes how I operate. Specifically, I keep asking myself, “what can I do about it?”. Because sitting in my own fog and letting anxiety make my decisions is worse than any specific outcome AI could bring.
When someone on my team brings this up in a 1:1, I ask them what specifically they’re worried about. Some people haven’t actually said it out loud before, so it could mean a lot for them to talk about it out loud.
After hearing them out, I see if we can redirect that energy toward agency. Not “don’t worry,” but: “What’s one thing you could do this week that would make you feel more in control?”
That might be experimenting with the latest trends in AI tooling, or taking a mental health week to go touch grass. And honestly, it might even be updating their resume, not because they’re about to be laid off, but because the act of taking stock reminds them that they have more to offer than they think.
There’s no way I can eliminate the uncertainty, but I’m just trying to stop letting it run the show.
Share It
Most of the best conversations I’ve had lately started with “yeah, me too.”
I’ve had this conversation enough times now that I’ve noticed what actually lands. Here’s what I keep coming back to:
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“You’re not behind.” If you’re aware of AI and thinking about how it affects your work, you’re already ahead of most people. The ones who should worry are the ones who refuse to engage with it at all.
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“AI is good at generating, but you’re 1000x better at deciding. Those are different skills.” The tools can design prototypes and build features out of prompts and thin air, but they still can’t figure out how to apply business context on what to build, who to talk to, or why it matters. That’s still us in the loop.
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“The people who will be fine are the ones who stay curious.” It’s not going to be the ones who master every tool, or the ones who predict the future correctly. It’s really the people who keep experimenting, keep learning, and keep adapting. Curiosity, above all else, is going to be the most durable skill of 2026.
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“Yeah, I think about it too.” Most of the fear I’ve seen is really about feeling alone in the uncertainty. Knowing that your manager, your friend, your partner is also grappling with this can really help build a community and build a safe place.
I don’t know what the job market looks like in five years. Neither does anyone else, no matter how confidently they say it. What I do know is that sitting in vague dread doesn’t help anyone, not you, not your team, and definitely not the people at your dinner table.
Do what I do - name the fear, and get specific about it. Then pick one thing you can do about it.
Fear is a reaction. What we do next is a choice.