AI may be making our loneliness problem worse, but HR can help by connecting people at work

Who would’ve thought spending significant amounts of time talking to AI chatbots would do a number on us?

Loneliness is such a significant problem in societies around the world that global officials in recent years have declared it a public health emergency. Like many other challenges in life, it doesn’t disappear once people clock into work: One in five workers globally reported feeling lonely, a 2024 Gallup poll found.

AI could potentially exacerbate that problem. Generative AI tools typically help boost users’ productivity, but emerging research suggests heavy AI users exhibit higher levels of social isolation. In cases where “lonely” humans turn to AI to seek companionship and advice, these tools can worsen users’ loneliness, while chatbots’ sycophantic-like responses to personal questions can potentially atrophy users’ social skills.

Workers agree AI helps increase efficiency: 86% of 2,150 respondents to a survey conducted by software giant Workday earlier this year report feeling more productive since starting using AI tools. Workers also reported using an AI tool for interpersonal reasons during the past 12 months, including seeking advice (as reported by 76% of respondents), brainstorming (52%), and companionship (37%.)

AI’s relationship to loneliness extends to the workplace. Some respondents confessed preferring AI over their actual human colleagues. Some 44% of respondents said they often choose AI over collaborating with other humans because it gets work done faster, and won’t challenge them, and 37% said they turn to AI over humans for brainstorming out of fear of judgment.

“AI is an incredible tool. Like, I really use it every day with joy and amazement, it has made my life so much more efficient…but we have to remember that it is a tool and not a substitute for relationships,” Carrie Varoquiers, Workday’s chief impact officer, told HR Brew.

Academic research has also explored AI’s relationship to loneliness at work: One series of studies published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Applied Psychology in 2023, which studied around 800 workers in the US, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia who frequently use AI for work, found participants with increased AI use also reported greater loneliness and desire to connect with others.

Part of a bigger problem. In some ways, AI is a continuation of technology’s benefits and consequences over the last few decades. The internet, smartphones, and more recently, video calls and remote work, have boosted productivity, but have also increased peoples’ sense of isolation.

“Our brains have evolved to rely on the social interactions that we have face-to-face, day in and day out, and as we have progressively shifted to working on computers and interacting with each other via screens, there has been a decrement, a loss of that human interaction,” Melissa Perry, an epidemiologist and dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University told HR Brew, noting human interaction includes things seemingly as simple as eye contact, intonation, and facial expressions. “Fast forward to now, a major uptick in AI use, and we’re communing more with screens than each other to seek out guidance, advice, and feedback.”

Loneliness is costly to employers: One study published in the Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance in 2022 estimated that loneliness-caused employee attrition costs employers a collective $154 billion annually.

“Loneliness and social isolation has a bottom line cost,” Varoquiers said. “I think that forward-thinking companies will begin to really pay attention to this before it becomes a problem, if they want to thrive.”

The takeaway for HR. Perry and Varoquiers both recommend employers intentionally create opportunities for workers to interact and engage with each other. Some examples from Workday include employee clubs and employee belonging councils (essentially, ERGs,) hosting in-person wellness months for smaller groups of employees, and an annual in-person leadership summit for new leaders hosted at the company’s headquarters.

“This is just one small subset of examples of things companies can do, and obviously every company is going to have a different culture or set of constraints, [but] they can still do something,” Varoquiers said. “It’s not an excuse for paralysis or inaction. There are ways that you can strengthen teams, regardless of the situation of your company and your workforce.”

Employers should emphasize the intentionality of connecting employees, Perry warned. Workers feel increased pressure to be productive at work, and employers should stress that these connections are for the company’s betterment.

“Too often we hurdle toward productivity metrics to the detriment of the human connection. You put human capital first at the center, and that’s where you’re going to get your greatest productivity payoffs,” Perry said.