The less-human workplace is a choice, not a forecast

I've been following the AI anxiety conversation for a while, and it's starting to feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we frame AI as something that happens to us, the more passive we become in shaping how it lands. So when a new survey landed, showing that 63% of workers expect AI to make the workplace feel less human, I didn't read it as a warning. I read it as a question of agency.

The Resume Now AI and Workplace Humanity Report surveyed over 1,000 employed adults in the US. The report found that 57% rank skill erosion — not job loss — as their biggest concern relating to AI, with 20% citing a loss of creativity and critical thinking. That last figure is worth pausing on. Because creativity isn't what AI replaces. It's what AI can, if you choose to use it that way, genuinely amplify.

What the data doesn't capture is the split between people who treat AI as a threat to their craft and those who treat it as a tool within their craft. I've seen both up close. One group spends energy worrying about what gets automated. The other asks what they can now do that wasn't possible before — faster iteration, deeper research, more time for the thinking that actually requires a human. The workplace feels less human only if you outsource the human part.

However, the anxiety is genuine, and it deserves to be taken seriously. But the framing of "AI will make work feel less human" assumes a passive relationship with the technology. For those willing to lean in and use it to expand their creative range, the opposite is just as plausible.

The piece: 63% of Workers Say AI Will Make the Workplace Feel Less Human in 2026 — Resume Now / Yahoo Finance

One question it left me with: The 7% who said AI will significantly free them for more meaningful work — I'd love to know what they're already doing differently from everyone else. Is it the tools, the mindset, or the job itself?