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Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Mental Health of AI-using Workers

Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Artificial Intelligence has been reshaping the world of work over the past decade. Many studies have been conducted to assess its direct impact on labour employment, wages, and other economic indicators. However, what stands in the way is how workers perceive this technological innovation, which affects their mental health, which, in turn, is the key determinant of their productivity and job performance. This paper focuses on the mental health of workers engaged with AI, using OECD survey data from the finance and manufacturing sectors across seven countries (Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Five latent constructs are derived from survey responses using exploratory factor analysis, representing dimensions of AI-at-work experience: anxiety, decision support, organizational trust, workplace impact, and life satisfaction and one binary measure of wage expectations. Then these constructs are entered into an ordered logistic regression with self-reported mental health outcomes as the dependent variable, categorised into three categories—Improved, Neutral, and Worsened (N = 1,190) —controlling for demographic characteristics—gender, age, education, country, and sector. AI Workplace Impact emerges as the strongest predictor of mental health outcomes. The factor AI Anxiety loses its statistical significance once other constructs are taken into account. Among demographic controls, only the 35–49 age band reaches significance. These findings suggest the AI’s impact on mental health depends less on exposure to technology itself and more on how it is introduced by their organization and on their psychological preparedness, rather than by who the worker is in demographic terms.
DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-11182084/v1
Language: English
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225819499
Cites: 21
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