March 18, 2026
AI Took the Repetitive Tasks and the Soul of the Office With It
Automation was supposed to free workers. Take the tedious tasks, leave the meaningful ones. According to new research from Resume Now, that is not quite how it has played out, and workers are growing aware of what they have lost in the exchange.
The new report, based on a survey of 1,003 employed U.S. adults conducted in October 2025, finds that 63% of workers expect AI to make the workplace feel less human in 2026. Of that group, 43% say work will feel more devalued and automated, while 20% go even further, anticipating an environment that feels cold and machine-driven. Only 16% believe AI will make the workplace feel more human.
The agents handling customer interactions, the teams designing service journeys, and the employees whose day-to-day engagement shapes what customers encounter are the same workforce now expressing serious unease about where AI is taking them.
Primary Fear Is Skill Loss
Job loss may make the headlines, but it is not what workers are most worried about. Fifty-seven percent of workers say over-reliance on AI reducing human skills will be the biggest workforce issue in 2026, ranking above job displacement at 49%. Dehumanisation of work follows at 42%, with surveillance and data misuse at 36%, and lack of transparency or accountability at 35%.
When asked about their most immediate personal fears, 29% cite job loss, 23% point to data misuse and privacy violations, and 20% highlight the erosion of creativity and critical thinking, which are the qualities most resistant to automation and most central to work that feels worthwhile.
Keith Spencer, Career Expert at Resume Now, said: “Employees aren’t rejecting AI. They’re asking how it will be used and whether it strengthens or weakens the human side of work.”
This issue is most visible in customer-facing roles, where AI has taken over the routine but left the emotionally demanding work entirely to humans. While 98% of contact centres are now using AI, 61% report facing increasingly difficult customer conversations, in part because AI absorbs the routine while routing the emotionally complex to agents who frequently lack adequate support. The repetitive tasks left, but the hardest ones stayed.
Not a Universal Takeover
Workers are not dismissing AI as irrelevant to their careers, but they are not buying the idea that it will affect every role equally either. Almost 50% say AI skills will matter in some roles but not most by the end of 2026. Only 18% expect AI expertise to become a near-universal requirement across white-collar work, and 17% consider it likely to remain optional or niche.
This measured view may be more grounded than either the alarm or the enthusiasm currently competing for attention. AI is arriving unevenly, faster in some roles and industries than others, and with consequences that depend heavily on how it is deployed and who is making those decisions.
CX leaders are still working through what good deployment actually looks like. Joel Neeb, Chief Transformation and Business Operations Officer at 8×8, argues that only the companies that understand AI use cases and bring their employees along for the journey are seeing results. When 70% of workers already feel the human side of work is eroding, that last part is not a nice-to-have.
When workers feel that AI is diminishing the judgment, creativity, and connection that made their work meaningful, the effects eventually surface in how they show up for customers.
Discretionary effort, emotional attentiveness, the willingness to go beyond the script, none of that cannot be replaced once they are gone. Organisations that automate the soul out of the workplace should not be surprised when the customer experience follows.
