Issue Absent transparent AI governance and reskilling, deployment amplifies workforce distress

Summary

GWI's Workplace Wellbeing Initiative argues that workforce distress around AI stems less from the technology than from how organisations handle it. What matters is how AI is introduced, governed and explained to staff. Without a transparent strategy, fair routes to reskilling and psychological safeguards, adoption can intensify existing distress or create new distress. Research cited by the Initiative links fear of skill replacement and feeling overwhelmed by AI demands to anxiety and depression. It recommends that employers build assessments of psychological impact into governance and explain clearly how roles will evolve. The core question, it says, is whether organisations manage this shift in ways that protect trust, capability and mental health.