Today’s Technological Turmoil; Tomorrow’s Fractured Firms: A Systematic Review of Artificial Intelligence’s Role in Exacerbating Workplace Loneliness

Many individuals are putting their health and lives in the hands of employers with little awareness of its implications. While organizations prioritize meeting the expectations of customers and shareholders through the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at an exponential rate, many employees suffer from the loneliness that it contributes. While AI has benefits (like increased profitability, efficiency, and growth), those can be offset by poor implementation, as loneliness can decrease productivity, increase sick day usage, and attrition. Loneliness poses a risk to individuals and impedes organizational performance and health, setting back economies. Without an ethical and thoughtful approach, AI implementations in the workplace can degenerate human lives and harm economies long-term. This paper reviews AI’s dark side through the Bright ICT Initiative taxonomy and Job Demands-Resources model. Systems thinking is leveraged to convey this phenomenon and Design Science is applied to create artifacts to understand loneliness and inform future solutions.