Employees are feeling 'AI Anxious' — they're worried about falling behind on AI and even pretending to be 'in the know' to colleagues

• According to a new LinkedIn report, nearly half of the employees surveyed say they are worried they don't know enough about AI.
• Nearly 40% said they pretend they know more about AI to seem 'in the know' in front of colleagues.

Employees are increasingly getting "AI Anxious" — they're worried about falling behind on AI at work and are even pretending to seem "in the know" in front of colleagues.

That's according to LinkedIn's survey of almost 30,000 employees based in 18 countries — including the US, UK, and Canada — conducted in August. The survey results were published on Wednesday.

Nearly half, or 49% of the employees surveyed, said they are worried they should know more about AI than they do.

Just under 40% of the respondents said they felt overwhelmed about not being able to keep up with AI developments — and 56% said they did not know how to use AI at work.

But they also didn't want to appear to be confused about the tech.

Nearly 40% of those surveyed admitted to pretending they know more about AI to seem "in the know" in front of colleagues, per the report.

As tools like ChatGPT seep into the workplace, workers have been worried about being replaced by AI.

A March study by Goldman Sachs found that over 300 million jobs could be disrupted by AI globally — as generative AI could replace up to a quarter of work done by employees.

These impacts could be unequal. Admin workers and women face the greatest risk of being replaced by AI, according to a study published by the International Labour Organization in August.

More recently, however, concern has turned toward whether workers can adapt quickly enough to AI skills.

The number of job postings that mention GPT or ChatGPT has increased over twentyfold since the chatbot was released last year — and AI engineers are the third fastest-growing vacancy on the platform — according to a separate LinkedIn report published in August.

And some employees have even been secretly using AI tools to get ahead in the workplace. A January survey by professional networking platform Fishbowl found that 70% of 11,700 users surveyed reported using ChatGPT without telling their bosses.

And despite employees' increasing concern over the tech, the AI hype could itself be losing momentum.

Traffic to ChatGPT's website has fallen for the third straight month in a row in August, according to data from web analytics company Similarweb.