Workers are feeling AI anxiety — and that they might be training their replacements

• Some workers worry that using AI at work will help the technology eventually replace them.
• Companies investing in AI want to boost efficiency, and some are using the tech as an excuse for cuts.
• In the near future, one workplace analyst says, AI will change most roles rather than replace them.

Erin McGoff keeps hearing the same concern from workers: that using AI endangers their jobs.

"I have people who say that they, every day, feel like they're training their replacement," said McGoff, who founded and runs the career-education platform AdviceWithErin.

A recent poll found that 30% of Americans believe their jobs may be made obsolete by AI. Meanwhile, more college students are changing their majors because of what AI might mean for the job market.

The anxiety isn't unfounded. Companies are investing billions of dollars in AI to boost efficiency. Having the technology take on work that companies now pay people to do would let businesses slash payroll. Already, some are talking about how they've replaced workers with AI.

Other companies, like BNY, are bringing on "digital employees" to handle mundane work. The bank has said the goal is to free up staff for other tasks, not to replace them.

As AI gets more capable, it's not surprising that these workers worry that using AI now — and thereby helping it improve — will make them less employable later. Yet the outcome is unlikely to be a simple one-for-one replacement, McGoff and other workplace observers told Business Insider.

That's because jobs tend to involve balancing multiple tasks, dealing with ambiguity, and making judgment. So it won't be easy for AI to push workers aside only by watching them operate.

"We're not close to that, almost in any sphere," said JP Gownder, a VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

McGoff said she recently heard from someone who was worried they were training AI to take their job, only to learn they worked as a product manager. "I said, 'Oh, so you're the client-facing role, AI is not coming for your job anytime soon."

Why worries aren't going away

A growing number of CEOs are pinning layoffs on AI. Often, though, such cuts — and sluggish hiring — have more to do with pandemic-era over-hiring, higher interest rates, and economic uncertainty, said Forrester's Gownder.

"It's fiction. It's AI-washing," he said.

Gownder said that for many companies to justify the money they and their investors are putting into the technology, "they're going to have to displace a lot of labor." In some cases, he said, AI won't be able to take over that many jobs. At the same time, many of the AI systems companies use aren't capable of learning by observing what workers do, Gownder said.

For certain workers, the unease comes from a deeper fear: that as AI improves, it will become harder to justify their paychecks, said Alex Rosenblat, a sociologist and author of the book "Uberland."

"The boundaries between what you're doing and what the machine is doing are so blurry that it makes it difficult to bargain," she said.

What incentivizes workers to use AI anyway

If companies want their teams to use AI, they first have to get over the hurdle of convincing them they won't be replaced. They can do that by making clear that the purpose of AI is to help workers be more successful and productive, Gownder said.

"If we wanted to replace you, we wouldn't be teaching you how to use these tools side-by-side as part of a human-machine workflow," he said, referring to how many bosses think.

Sometimes, employers explicitly tell workers they want them to help train AI. Employees might have to label data or provide feedback to AI. When companies collect data on how you work, the goal is often to automate routine tasks, not entire jobs, Gownder said.

He said that for jobs with pretty clear procedures that could guide AI — think coding or customer service — it still won't be easy for AI agents to fully replace workers. Of course, there could still be fewer jobs in total.

"For most people in most roles, AI will augment rather than replace them in the next few years," Gownder said.

To that point, job listings for software engineering roles have surged in 2026, counter to the idea that AI is killing opportunities for devs.

Workers have been here before

This isn't the first time workers have worried about being displaced, Rosenblat said. She pointed to the arrival of the internet decades ago.

"People who acquired these new tools and adapted them to their own practices could flourish, and people who couldn't could be left behind," Rosenblat said.

Andrej Radovanovic, a 21-year-old college student in Tampa who creates videos for a range of clients, is embracing AI and isn't worried that he's, in effect, tipping off a future competitor. He said that's partly because he relies on his creativity to know what will grab attention.

Whether Radovanovic is making an ad or a corporate training video, he said he still relies on conventional software tools to fill gaps where AI falls short — combining automated and manual workflows.

Radovanovic said that serves as an important reminder: "Only when you dive into using it do you see how limited it actually is."

Do you have a story to share about your experience with AI at work? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.