The accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence triggers a new form of collective distress: the fear of falling behind. More than half of American workers report concern about the future of their jobs, and 65% of AI users fear lagging if they fail to adopt the technology quickly. Psychology now studies the phenomenon under its own name: AI FOMO.
From a campus joke to a scientific scale
By: Gabriel E. Levy B.
Patrick McGinnis coined the acronym FOMO, fear of missing out, in a satirical piece he published in May 2004 in The Harbus, the student newspaper of Harvard Business School. The explosion of social media turned that quip into a global concept, and the Oxford Dictionary added it in 2013.
That same year, psychologist Andrew Przybylski and his team validated the term in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. They defined it as the apprehension that others may be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent, and they created the ten-item scale that research still uses. Two decades later, artificial intelligence gave the concept a second life. In 2025, the journal Telematics and Informatics published the first scale of FOMO applied to AI, with three dimensions: anxiety about technological lag, concern about access to the tools, and anguish over the benefits others may already be capturing.
The numbers behind a measurable distress
The data confirm that the malaise goes beyond anecdote. The Pew Research Center surveyed 5,273 American workers and found that 52% feel worried about the future of AI in their jobs, while 33% feel overwhelmed. Among workers aged 18 to 29, the feeling of being overwhelmed rises to 40%.
The American Psychological Association found in 2023 that 38% of workers fear AI will make their duties obsolete. Among those who carry that fear, 64% reported tension or stress during the workday, compared with 38% of those who do not. The consulting firm EY measured the phenomenon through another lens: 71% of American employees declared anxiety about AI and 65% feared losing their jobs because of it. Gallup, for its part, documented the rise of FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete, which climbed from 15% of workers in 2021 to 22% in 2023. A KPMG survey released in late 2025 raised the alarm: 52% now fear AI will end up replacing their position.
Fear as a marketing strategy
The industry itself feeds much of this anxiety. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index revealed in 2024 that 79% of business leaders consider AI adoption imperative to compete, even though 59% admit they cannot measure its productivity gains. The same study found that more than half of employees hide their use of these tools for fear of looking replaceable. In the 2026 edition, 65% of users confessed a fear of lagging if they fail to adopt AI quickly.
Researchers Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, authors of the book The AI Con, argue that AI hype rests on the fear of missing out: if you fail to ride the wave, you will fall behind. Venture capital reproduces that logic and funds AI-labeled companies without solid business models, just to avoid missing the next big bet.
Latin America between pressure and caution
The 2025 Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index, prepared by ECLAC and Chile’s National AI Center, places Chile, Brazil and Uruguay at the head of regional adoption, with Colombia following close behind. The firm Cintel found that 44% of Colombians fear AI will affect their future employment, although 48% have already used one of these tools.
The Labor Observatory of Universidad del Rosario calculated, with data from the national household survey, that 5.9 million workers in Colombia, 25.8% of the total, show high exposure to AI along with high complementarity with it. Its lead researcher, Andrés García-Suaza, insists that training works as an enabler: the higher the education level, the greater the capacity to turn the technology into an ally. In Argentina and Uruguay, the first national survey on AI adoption registered mixed feelings, as enthusiasm and high expectations coexist with nervousness about privacy and employment.
Ways out of the anguish
Psychology explains the phenomenon through familiar mechanisms. Social comparison pushes people to measure themselves against colleagues who boast mastery of every new tool. Loss aversion, described by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, makes the brain feel potential losses more strongly than equivalent gains. Uncertainty about the future of work completes the picture and turns every product launch into a reminder of everything still left to learn.
The evidence also points to antidotes. Research published in Telematics and Informatics identified AI literacy as the main protective factor against anxiety: those who understand the technology stop fearing it as a black box. The American Psychological Association recommends that companies communicate the impact of AI on jobs with transparency and involve employees in the selection of tools. On the individual level, specialists suggest information hygiene: limits on exposure to tech news, focus on what remains controllable, and planned disconnection. The reasonable goal consists of understanding what the technology brings to one’s own craft, instead of chasing every market novelty.
In summary
FOMO jumped from social media to artificial intelligence and now drives measurable levels of anxiety and workplace distress around the world. Surveys by Pew, the APA, EY and Gallup document the malaise, while the tech industry amplifies it as a sales argument. AI literacy, transparent communication inside companies and individual information hygiene emerge as the most effective antidotes against the fear of falling behind.
References
American Psychological Association. (2023). 2023 Work in America survey: Artificial intelligence, monitoring technology, and psychological well-being. https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/work-in-america/2023-work-america-ai-monitoring
Bender, E. M. & Hanna, A. (2025). The AI con: How to fight big tech’s hype and create the future we want. Harper.
Centro de Evaluación de Políticas basadas en la Evidencia & Fundar. (2025). Encuesta Nacional sobre Adopción de IA. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. https://cepe-fundar.github.io/encuesta.html
Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe & Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial de Chile. (2025). Índice Latinoamericano de Inteligencia Artificial 2025. https://www.cepal.org
Ernst & Young. (2023). AI anxiety in business survey. https://www.ey.com/en_us/newsroom/2023/12/ey-research-shows-most-us-employees-feel-ai-anxiety
Fortune. (2026). AI angst mutates into FOBO as fear of becoming obsolete fuels quiet resistance across the economy. https://fortune.com/2026/04/05/what-is-fobo-ai-angst-adoption/
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Infobae. (2026). Cada vez más colombianos usan IA para trabajar y estudiar, pero las empresas frenan su avance. https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2026/05/13/cada-vez-mas-colombianos-usan-ia-para-trabajar-y-estudiar-pero-las-empresas-frenan-su-avance/
McGinnis, P. J. (2004). Social theory at HBS: McGinnis’ two FOs. The Harbus.
Microsoft & LinkedIn. (2024). 2024 Work Trend Index annual report: AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/ai-at-work-is-here-now-comes-the-hard-part
Microsoft. (2026). 2026 Work Trend Index: Agents, human agency, and the opportunity for every organization. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/agents-human-agency-and-the-opportunity-for-every-organization
Pew Research Center. (2025). U.S. workers are more worried than hopeful about future AI use in the workplace. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-workers-are-more-worried-than-hopeful-about-future-ai-use-in-the-workplace/
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R. & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841-1848.
Universidad del Rosario, Observatorio Laboral. (2026). La IA redefine el trabajo en Colombia: brechas, riesgos y oportunidades. https://urosario.edu.co/periodico-nova-et-vetera/economia/la-ia-redefine-el-trabajo-en-colombia
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