Workers Are Turning to AI for Friendship — and Getting Lonelier

By Olivia Hart

Three-quarters of regular AI users now turn to chatbots for career coaching and friendship — support once provided by colleagues — according to research by organizational psychologist Constance Hadley published in Harvard Business Review. Half of those same workers report feeling moderately or highly lonely on the job.

The finding sits at the center of an uncomfortable pattern. Workday's Human Connection Workplace Index found that 14% of employees — and 20% of Gen Z workers — took time off in the past year due to loneliness or isolation. One in five Gen Z employees says they feel lonelier since AI tools entered their workplace.

"We now have AI as a potential substitute for human connection, and it's a new player in the relationship dynamic at work," said Hadley, founder of the Institute for Life at Work, who has spent years studying the drivers of employee isolation.

What does the data actually show?

Workday's index adds a quieter figure: one-third of employees rarely or never have personal conversations with colleagues. Nearly one-third say that since AI's widespread adoption, they are losing key social skills. The reported warning signs include less patience for small talk, trouble reading colleagues' cues, heightened anxiety around unscripted check-ins, and declining ability to resolve conflict face-to-face.

Both studies point to the same conclusion. As technology becomes the path of least social resistance, the human interaction that builds team cohesion appears to be fading. Notably, neither study claims AI causes loneliness directly — the correlation is the story, and causation remains unproven.

What are the four relational risks?

Hadley identifies four disruptions when software replaces human collaboration:

• Workforce downsizing during restructuring, which increases independent work and isolation.
• Social stamina atrophy. Constant interaction with a patient, nonjudgmental chatbot can make human conversations feel intimidating or exhausting.
• Defaulting to AI for answers rather than asking a peer, eliminating chances to build trust and reciprocity.
• "Existential loneliness" — the realization that one is confiding in a program incapable of true presence, what Hadley calls an illusion of intimacy.

The author of the Workday piece, Chief Impact Officer Carrie Varoquiers, draws a parallel to psychotherapist Esther Perel's observation: many people have hundreds of online "friends" but no one to feed their cat when they leave town.

Who is most at risk?

The intuitive assumption — that introverts are thriving in the era of remote work and chatbots — does not hold. Hadley defines loneliness as "the gap between what you're seeking and what you're getting back."

"I've consistently seen across my studies that introverts are even lonelier than extroverts. Even if they do prefer working alone, that doesn't mean they don't need other humans, and we can't assume they're doing fine on their own," she said.

When Hadley surveyed workers on what they wanted from employers, the demands were modest. "Employees want the five to 10 minutes of meeting chit-chat, communal lunches, and the occasional team outing," she said.

There is a catch, and it matters for any manager designing interventions. Hadley found that the loneliest employees are also the most reluctant to join those team rituals. "It's not an automatic 'if you build it, they will come' situation. You actually need to do targeted outreach to overcome a lot of the hesitation," she said.

What is the payoff for leaders?

When employees believe leaders care about their well-being, Hadley's research found higher job satisfaction, more positive attitudes toward AI, higher productivity from AI tools, and stronger intention to stay at the company. The claim comes from self-reported survey data, a caveat worth keeping in mind.

The prescribed fix is not rejecting AI. It is keeping onboarding, mentoring, conflict resolution and performance feedback strictly human-led, and reinvesting AI's time savings into team culture.

The stakes extend beyond retention. The World Health Organization estimates loneliness is associated with 100 deaths every hour — roughly 876,000 a year.

"Our lives are so digitized now that the workplace is often our only opportunity for social connection. Make it your business to invest that saved time back into your work culture," Hadley said. "For leaders, it is a real opportunity that you are uniquely positioned to take up, and it could make a huge difference."

The so-what is straightforward: companies that bank AI's efficiency gains without spending them on human connection may find the savings come at the expense of the workforce using the tools.