AI Anxiety Isn’t a Skills Problem. It’s an Identity Crisis.
Abraham Ologundudu
AI causes anxiety not because people lack skills, but because it challenges their sense of identity and value at work. Many feel pressure to use AI just to appear up-to-date, which adds to their stress. The key is to use AI thoughtfully, keeping what makes us human and protecting what truly matters.
16 Mar 2026
The anxiety is proportional to the degree to which identity is fused with the role. If your sense of self is built primarily around what you produce or what you know, then a tool that can produce similar outputs or access similar knowledge is experienced, consciously or not, as a threat to the self. Not just a professional inconvenience. A threat to who you are.
Understanding this difference changes how we should respond.
Before asking ‘How do I use AI?’, ask: ‘Who am I, and what do I value?’
This isn’t just a philosophical point. It’s the most practical place to start. and it’s a question you can only answer honestly if you’ve really thought about both what AI can do and what it can’t replace.
A founder who uses AI to gather research, a designer who uses it to quickly try out ideas, or a leader who uses it for first drafts. These are good uses, not compromises. Use AI freely in these areas.
The problem isn’t AI handling efficiency tasks. The real issue, and I’ve felt this myself, is the subtle pull to use it to skip the slower, harder phase of creative and strategic thinking. That’s often where the best ideas come from. This phase is worth protecting. Not because AI can’t help, but because taking time to sit with a problem before solving it is part of what makes the solution valuable.
Anxiety pushes us to react. It wants quick decisions because speed feels safe. But the most important choices during real change, what to build, what to protect, what to let go, need the opposite. They need the courage to slow down and think clearly.
In this context, wisdom means being able to use AI, and all it offers, from a strong sense of self, so adopting it is your choice, not just following the crowd. It means asking not just ‘What can AI do?’ but ‘What should it do here, for this purpose, and for these values?’
It also means being willing to say, in some situations, ‘We could automate this, but it would cost us something we don’t want to lose.’