When FOMO ( fear of missing out) first entered popular language, it was about teenagers scrolling through friends’ social feeds and worrying they weren’t having as much fun. But today, that word has taken on a different meaning in the era of artificial intelligence.
The fear now isn’t about beach photos or party snapshots. It’s about being left behind in a technological revolution that promises dramatic changes in work, creativity, and competition. It’s about the feeling that your own intelligence is not enough anymore, and you can’t compete with the artificial one.
You might call it AI FOMO, the worry, for individuals and companies alike, that others are moving ahead with AI while you stand still. And this feeling is real enough that researchers are trying to understand it scientifically.
They’ve developed tools to measure how much people fear falling behind in AI skills or access. A recent study showing how this fear plays out found that more than one in nine adults report elevated levels of anxiety about not keeping up with AI, especially younger people and women. Importantly, those with better AI literacy reported less fear, suggesting that understanding the technology reduces anxiety.
This isn’t abstract psychological jargon. It is a psychological undercurrent that feels entirely modern: tied to the ubiquity of AI in press, policy, and venture capital. The sense that everyone must adopt intelligent technology or risk irrelevance. But like most anxieties, its influence extends far beyond individual nervousness.
I think we reached the point where AI FOMO is shaping business decisions, corporate strategy, and even public policy.
When fear and strategy collide
The ripples from AI FOMO extend far beyond individual stress. They reach into boardrooms and strategic plans where companies, whether big or small, are deciding how hard to pursue AI.
A survey by intelligent automation company ABBYY found that around 60-70 % of technology leaders report fear of missing out as a major reason their organisation is investing in AI. Many worry that if they don’t adopt AI now, competitors will seize an advantage. And together with the leaders’ fear, some decisions are coming that may affect the employees.
I will give credit. That fear can feel logical. After all, AI promises efficiency, insight, and new capabilities, even for thought less capable.
But when fear becomes the main reason for action, it warps strategy. Rather than asking “What problem are we solving with AI?”, decision-makers ask “Can we afford not to use AI?” This change from thoughtful problem-solving to panic-driven adoption creates an illusion of purpose where there may be none.
And the results can be underwhelming. Recent business surveys show that many companies are still struggling to see real returns from their AI investments. Some executives report that less than half of their AI projects deliver measurable impact, or struggle to even quantify it. That’s a sign that widespread adoption does not automatically translate into value, especially when the impetus to buy in comes from anxiety rather than strategy.
The human side
AI FOMO isn’t just a corporate phenomenon. It affects workers too. Research focused on attitudes in the workplace shows that employees who believe AI will reduce their autonomy or make their skills obsolete tend to experience fear of missing out on AI adoption alongside heightened job anxiety. This connects with broader concerns about technology and wellbeing at work: many people worry that AI might replace tasks or change job expectations without clarity.
That fear can influence behaviour, too. Anecdotal reports, such as research showing a significant share of workers using AI tools secretly to keep up with perceived expectations, reflect this sense of needing to keep pace, even in silence. It’s not just about skills; it’s about identity, worth, and belonging in a professional world that is moving so fast.
The result is a kind of feedback loop. Investment without strategy, momentum without direction. In the pursuit of not falling behind, many risk falling into the very inefficiency they hoped to avoid.
Beyond anxiety; toward intentional AI
To navigate this moment with equanimity requires resisting the gravitational pull of fear. This is not a rejection of AI’s transformative potential. A large majority of business leaders still view AI as an opportunity, even as concerns about risk and readiness grow.
But recognising AI FOMO as a real force, not just a catchphrase, allows companies, governments, and individuals to ask better questions:
- What are we truly trying to accomplish with this technology?
- How does it serve core strategic goals?
- Who benefits from this adoption, and who might it harm?
The answer, ultimately, is not to replace fear with oblivious optimism, but to replace reflexive action with intentional adoption.
In the end, AI FOMO tells us something deeper about ourselves than any quarterly earnings report or headline about the next breakthrough. It reveals how closely we have tied our hopes, and our anxieties, to a technology that is, for many of us, still only partly understood.
We see AI everywhere: pitched as productivity’s savior one moment, feared as a job-eating force the next. Across workplaces and dinner-table conversations alike, even on dating apps, the underlying emotion often isn’t excitement or dread alone, but something that feels curiously familiar and deeply human: the fear of falling behind, of being outpaced by peers, competitors, or even young strangers we’ve never met.
This feeling is more than a distraction or a fancy word. It is linked to genuine stress, anxiety, and reduced well-being for some, and it shapes behaviour in subtle but far-reaching ways. People tweak their resumes, accept rushed technology rollouts, or hunch over training modules long into the night; not because they are certain of the value, but because they fear the alternative.
This moment, then, feels like more than a fad. It is a crossroads between reaction and reflection. We can choose to let fear drive our choices, or we can treat that fear as a signal to slow down, learn, and make room for real understanding.
If I’ve learned anything in the years since AI leapt into the popular imagination, it’s this: technology changes fastest when we pair curiosity with clarity, and adapts most successfully when we meet it with empathy rather than anxiety.
So as the next wave of models arrives, as companies wordsmith their AI strategies, and as employees juggle training modules alongside tools and dashboards, here’s one gentle reminder worth holding onto: technology doesn’t define us. Our reactions to it do. We are the ones who imagine, experiment, hesitate, question, and decide.
(A)I know.
