A while back I was attending an online AI Summit where I overheard Don Bennion from Adobe say something that made everyone uncomfortable:

“A lot of people are worried about what this means for their jobs, and they have every right to be.”

Don was naming the elephant in the room that’s making AI adoption so much harder than it needs to be.

The AI anxiety is real, it’s rational, and trying to minimize it or explain it away is the worst possible approach. The leaders who are winning with AI transformation have learned to address these fears head-on with honesty, empathy, and practical action.

The Conversation Most Leaders Are Avoiding

Let’s start with some uncomfortable honesty. When you announce an AI initiative in your organization, a significant percentage of your people immediately start wondering if you’re planning to replace them. They’re not being dramatic or resistant to change. They’re being logical.

They’ve watched automation eliminate manufacturing jobs. They’ve seen customer service roles disappear as chatbots improved. They know that AI is more capable than previous automation technologies. And they’re smart enough to recognize that “increased efficiency” often translates to “fewer people needed.”

Most leaders respond to this anxiety in one of two ways, and both are problematic. They either avoid the topic entirely, hoping people will focus on the positive aspects of AI, or they offer blanket reassurances that “AI won’t replace people, it will augment them.”

The avoidance approach creates more anxiety because people fill the silence with their worst fears. The reassurance approach lacks credibility because everyone can see examples of AI replacing human work, even if that’s not your intention.

What Honest Leadership Actually Looks Like

Don’s approach at Adobe was radically different. Instead of debating whether people’s concerns were valid, he acknowledged them directly.

This acknowledgment does something powerful. It validates people’s intelligence and gives you credibility to have more nuanced conversations about what AI transformation actually means for your organization.

The key insight is that people aren’t asking for false reassurance. They’re asking for honest information so they can make intelligent decisions about their careers and their futures.

The Three-Part Framework That Actually Works

Here’s a framework that acknowledges reality while creating productive momentum:

1. Acknowledge the Uncertainty

Start by admitting what you don’t know. You don’t know exactly how AI capabilities will evolve. You don’t know precisely which jobs will be most impacted. You don’t know how quickly changes will happen.

This honesty gives you credibility for everything else you say. People can tell when you’re being straight with them versus when you’re trying to manage their concerns.

2. Share What You Do Know

While you can’t predict the future perfectly, you can share your current thinking about how AI fits into your organization’s strategy. Are you focused on using AI to handle routine tasks so people can focus on higher-value work? Are you exploring AI applications that could help you serve customers better or enter new markets?

Be specific about the time horizons you’re considering. Most AI implementations take months or years to fully deploy, which gives people time to adapt and develop new skills.

3. Create Pathways for Growth

This is where many leaders stop at acknowledgment and miss the opportunity to channel anxiety into productive action. People need to see concrete ways they can position themselves for success in an AI-enabled organization.

What skills will become more valuable as AI handles routine work? What new roles might emerge as AI capabilities expand? How can people start developing relevant capabilities now?

The Moderna Perspective: Mission Beats Anxiety

Bryce Challamel from Moderna offered a completely different perspective that’s worth considering. His organization didn’t experience significant AI-related job anxiety, but not because they provided better reassurances. They focused relentlessly on their mission.

“We don’t believe in a perfect world. Everyone is not healthy. Everyone is not well fed. We have climate change, we have demographic change coming ahead. We have crime problems, we have a lot of things to solve for. We are not anywhere near being out of work here.”

His team saw AI as essential for scaling their ability to solve urgent problems, not as a threat to their employment. The anxiety disappeared because people were focused on how much more they could accomplish with AI assistance.

This suggests that one of the most effective ways to address job anxiety is to connect AI adoption to meaningful organizational purposes that require more human capability, not less.

What Not to Say (And What to Say Instead)

Most leaders default to phrases that sound reassuring but actually increase anxiety because they’re obviously incomplete or misleading. Here are some common approaches that backfire:

Don’t say: “AI will never replace humans.”
Instead say: “AI will change how we work, and we’re committed to helping people adapt and find new ways to create value.”

Don’t say: “This is just about efficiency.”
Instead say: “This is about building capabilities that let us do things we couldn’t do before, which creates new opportunities for human contribution.”

Don’t say: “Don’t worry about it.”
Instead say: “These are legitimate concerns, and we want to address them transparently as we learn more.”

Don’t say: “AI is just a tool.”
Instead say: “AI is a powerful capability that will change how we approach many types of work, and we want to make sure everyone can leverage it effectively.”

The Skills Conversation That Changes Everything

One of the most productive ways to address AI anxiety is to shift the conversation from “Will I have a job?” to “What skills will make me most valuable?”

Smart leaders are helping people understand that AI adoption creates demand for distinctly human skills that become more important, not less important, as AI handles routine work.

Creative problem-solving, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, complex communication, and the ability to work effectively with AI systems… these capabilities become more valuable in AI-enabled organizations.

The people who develop these skills proactively will have more opportunities, not fewer. The people who resist developing AI fluency will find themselves at a disadvantage.

Creating Psychological Safety for Learning

Here’s something most leaders miss: AI anxiety often prevents people from engaging with AI tools, which makes their fears self-fulfilling. If you’re afraid AI will replace you, the natural response is to avoid using it, which means you don’t develop the skills to work effectively with it.

Leaders need to create environments where people feel safe to experiment with AI, make mistakes, and ask questions without those activities being interpreted as evidence that their jobs are at risk.

This means celebrating learning rather than just results. It means sharing your own AI experiments and mistakes. It means making it clear that developing AI skills is part of professional development, not a signal that someone’s current role is in jeopardy.

The Investment That Pays Dividends

Some leaders worry that addressing AI anxiety directly will make people more concerned, not less. But the opposite is true. People are already concerned. Ignoring their concerns doesn’t make the anxiety go away; it just makes people less likely to share what they’re thinking.

When you address concerns directly and honestly, you build trust that makes everything else about AI transformation easier. People are more willing to try new tools, share feedback about what’s working, and collaborate on finding better ways to integrate AI into workflows.

The investment in difficult conversations upfront pays dividends in faster adoption, better feedback, and more innovative applications of AI throughout your organization.

The Long-Term Perspective That Matters

Here’s what I think leaders need to communicate more clearly: the biggest career risk isn’t that AI will eliminate jobs in well-run organizations. It’s that people will fall behind in developing AI literacy while their peers and competitors develop these capabilities.

The organizations that figure out human-AI collaboration first will have significant competitive advantages. The people who become skilled at working with AI will have more opportunities and influence. The companies and individuals who resist this transition will find themselves at increasing disadvantages.

This isn’t about eliminating human work. It’s about augmenting human capabilities in ways that create new possibilities for value creation.

What This Means for Your Leadership

If you’re leading AI transformation, you can’t avoid the AI anxiety conversation indefinitely. The longer you wait to address it directly, the more it will undermine your other change management efforts.

Start by acknowledging what people are thinking, even if it’s uncomfortable. Share what you know and what you don’t know. Create concrete pathways for people to develop relevant skills and find new ways to contribute value.

Most importantly, connect your AI initiatives to meaningful purposes that require human creativity, judgment, and expertise. Help people see AI as a tool for doing more important work, not just doing the same work with fewer people.

Because at the end of the day, the organizations that successfully navigate AI transformation won’t be the ones that eliminated job anxiety. They’ll be the ones that channeled that anxiety into productive energy for learning, adapting, and creating new value.

Facing tough conversations about AI and employment in your organization? I’d love to help you develop communication strategies that address concerns honestly while building momentum for positive change. Connect with me on LinkedIn to explore approaches that work for your specific culture and context.