---
id: "claim-ai-increases-depression"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["¶2"]
tags: ["mental-health", "workplace-wellbeing"]
related: ["concept-fobo"]
speakers: ["Jamil Zaki"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
sources: ["adoption"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-adoption"
originDay: 9
articleStem: "hbr-edu-42-empathetic-leadership-ai-adoption"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/04/empathetic-leadership-can-make-or-break-ai-adoption"
sourceTitle: "Empathetic Leadership Can Make or Break AI Adoption"
---
# Corporate AI adoption is linked to rising employee depression over time

**Claim:** Corporate AI adoption is linked to increasing employee depression levels over time. **(Source confidence: high; independent confidence: low — see caveats)**

The source argues that introducing AI into the workplace poses a direct risk to employee mental health if not managed with empathy. A **2025 study** cited by Zaki found that as companies adopted AI technologies, the depression levels of their employees tended to *increase over time*. This is attributed to rising mistrust, the erosion of human connection, and the pervasive fear of becoming obsolete ([[concept-fobo]]).

**Enrichment / confidence:** AI-related anxiety and stress are empirically supported (e.g., 2025 job-crafting studies show AI adoption stimulates AI anxiety and avoidance behaviors), and job insecurity/perceived obsolescence correlate with anxiety and depressive symptoms in the broader literature. However, the specific 2025 study *directly linking corporate AI adoption to increased clinical depression over time* cannot be verified in open literature — treat it as an unpublished/proprietary source or an interpretive extension, not settled scientific consensus. This is one of the source's most speculative empirical claims.