AI Anxiety Grips US Workforce as 2026 Begins
A different question hangs in the air at American workplaces as 2026 unfolds. Workers are not asking what comes next for their careers. Instead, they are wondering how much time they have left. This concern surfaces in nervous jokes about automation during coffee breaks. It appears in the tense laughter that follows announcements at company meetings. Employees now carefully read internal emails, searching for terms like "restructuring" or "efficiency." Artificial intelligence has moved beyond being a distant concept. For millions of workers, it has become a visible countdown clock, ticking silently and creating deep unease.
Survey Reveals Widespread Job Security Fears
A new national survey by Resume Now, called the 2026 AI & Job Security Outlook Report, provides concrete numbers for this growing worry. The data does more than just measure anxiety levels. It shows a workforce gradually accepting a troubling reality. The era of stable, predictable careers might already be ending for many people.
For decades, employees heard that technology creates new opportunities. They were told that new tools lead to new roles. The narrative suggested that disruption, while difficult, ultimately helps everyone who adapts. The Resume Now findings indicate this belief is now weakening significantly.
According to the survey, 60 percent of workers think AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates in the coming year. Only 12 percent expect the opposite outcome. The remaining workers occupy an uncertain middle ground, anticipating balance but finding no comfort in that prediction. People are watching specific tasks disappear from their daily work. They see roles becoming smaller, teams getting downsized, and responsibilities quietly shifting to automated systems. These systems do not require breaks, benefits, or explanations. Workers are doing the calculations, and they do not like what they see.
Personal Experience Makes Threat Feel Real
More than half of workers, specifically 51 percent, report being worried about losing their jobs to AI or automation in 2026. This includes 10 percent who describe themselves as extremely worried. These individuals already live with a constant sense of professional instability.
This fear feels different from previous automation cycles because it hits closer to home. It is not about factories in another state or industries somewhere else. The report reveals that one in five workers personally knows someone who lost a job to AI in the past year. For 13 percent, it was not just one person but several individuals in their circle.
Once job loss enters your personal network, it stops being theoretical. The anxiety becomes contagious, spreading through workplaces and communities.
Workers See Immediate Threats to Their Roles
The future appears much nearer than workers previously expected. When asked when AI might threaten their own jobs, responses show a compressed timeline. Sixty-seven percent believe AI will eventually threaten their specific role. Alarmingly, one in ten say it is already happening to them right now. Another 15 percent expect impact within the next one to two years.
This perception matters because careers are built on planning and forward thinking. They depend on the belief that skills learned today will remain valuable tomorrow. When workers think the ground beneath them could shift within months rather than decades, that foundation begins to crack. Only 33 percent believe AI will never threaten their job. This shrinking group may feel confident, but they are becoming increasingly isolated.
Expectation of Loss Rather Than Transition
Perhaps the most concerning insight from the Resume Now report involves how workers view AI's impact on entire industries. Nearly half, 46 percent, expect job reductions in their field by the end of 2026. Twelve percent anticipate large-scale losses. Only 4 percent believe AI will create more jobs than it eliminates in their specific industry.
That four percent figure should make policymakers pause and reflect. If workers no longer believe in the promise of transition, if they expect erosion rather than evolution, then reskilling slogans sound empty. Training programs only work when there are clear destinations to move toward. Currently, many workers feel uncertain whether those destinations even exist.
The 2030 Question: Am I Replaceable?
Looking further ahead to 2030, the anxiety deepens even more. Nearly half of workers, 46 percent, believe their job could be replaced by AI by that year. For 16 percent, that outcome feels very likely. Only 16 percent feel fully confident that AI could never replace what they do.
This belief that one's work is ultimately replicable by a machine cuts deeper than fear of unemployment. It challenges the meaning workers attach to their labor. If what you do can be automated away, what does that say about its value? What does it say about your own value as a professional?
When people start feeling interchangeable, workplace loyalty begins to erode. Risk-taking behavior increases. Cynicism sets in across organizations.
A Settling Sense of Pessimism
The emotional toll of this situation is unmistakable. Fifty-four percent of workers feel pessimistic about how AI will affect their career over the next three years. Twelve percent describe themselves as very pessimistic.
This is not simply resistance to technological progress. It represents a form of grief, anticipatory grief for careers that may never fully materialize. It is mourning for career ladders that no longer reach where they once promised to go.
What This Moment Demands From Leaders
The Resume Now survey, conducted among 1,006 US adults in December 2025, does not argue that AI is inherently destructive. What it reveals is something more urgent. Workers feel exposed and vulnerable.
They are being asked to adapt faster than support systems can accommodate. They must retrain without guarantees of future employment. They need to stay productive while quietly questioning their own relevance in the workplace.
If this anxiety gets dismissed as mere paranoia, it will grow and spread. If it gets acknowledged honestly, publicly, and through structural changes, it might still be addressed effectively.
The real danger is not that AI will change work. That transformation is already underway. The true risk is that work will change without a proper plan for the people who depend on it for their livelihoods.
As 2026 begins, the question is no longer whether AI will reshape jobs. Most workers already assume that will happen.
The question has become simpler and far more uncomfortable. Who will be protected when these changes arrive?
