Human Resources
Gen Z Isn’t Broken—The AI Workplace Is
The most AI-fluent generation is also the loneliest at work. Here's why that matters for the next decade.
Sara Braun
Editorial Strategist, HR
Workday
If you want to know what work is going to look like in 2035, watch Gen Z.
This generation, defined by Pew Research Center as those born between 1997 and 2012, are the first to begin their careers inside an AI-saturated workplace. They are the heaviest AI users by a wide margin. And according to Workday’s Human Connection Workplace Index, they are also the most disconnected, the most distrusting of their colleagues, and the loneliest cohort in the workforce.
That combination—high AI adoption, low human connection—is not a coincidence. It's a signal.
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Gen Z as the Blueprint
Every generation gets shaped by the conditions of its early career years. For Gen Z, those conditions were unprecedented: many of them started their professional lives during a pandemic, working remotely from bedrooms and kitchen tables, with far fewer in-person interactions than previous generations relied on to build relationships and find trusted mentors.
“As somebody that started in the workforce just after COVID, it [was] so important to be face-to-face with coworkers,” Rachel Aquino, a 27-year-old public relations professional, says. “Especially when you’re new in an industry, it’s better to learn that way.”
Gen Z also walked into the workforce just as AI tools became table stakes. A whopping 81% of Gen Zers use AI daily, compared to 55% of Gen X, according to Workday’s survey. They didn't have to learn to integrate AI into existing habits—for many, AI was the habit from day one.
“It’s kind of become the new Google,” Aquino says of AI.
Early speedbumps on the road to full AI adoption are well documented and vary in magnitude, ranging from the threat of mass layoffs and the advent of AI-generated “workslop,” to the raging debate whether the use of the em-dash is an AI writing tell.
Gen Z is more than just the youngest cohort at work. They are a live preview of what happens when AI adoption runs ahead of human infrastructure.
81% of Gen Zers use AI daily, compared to 55% of Gen X.
What the Data Says
The Human Connection Workplace Index data on Gen Z is striking. Instead of confirming tired stereotypes about "young people and their phones,” it reveals just how different the youngest cohort’s daily experience of work has become compared to their older counterparts.
1. Trust and friendship are eroding
“I feel like everyone’s in their own lanes nowadays,” says Aquino. “I don’t really talk or interact with my coworkers for brainstorming unless it’s really important. But when we do, everyone brings something from AI.”
Gen Z is showing us the hidden costs of early AI adoption. When conversations happen more often with a chatbot than a human, connection fades. When instant results replace collaborative friction, debate dies. And when teams stop solving problems together, they stop trusting each other. Our survey sheds light on the extent of the problem:
- Gen Z is 8 times more likely than Gen X to feel lonely at work.
- Gen Z is 12 times more likely than Gen X to feel completely disconnected from colleagues.
- Gen Z is 16 times more likely than Gen X to say they don't trust their colleagues.
These aren't soft metrics. Trust and friendship are the connective tissue of high-performing teams—the things that make people willing to ask for help, push back on a bad idea, or stay through a hard quarter. When they erode, performance inevitably follows.
2. AI is exacerbating the problem
Gen Z is the first cohort to tell us, plainly and at scale, that the technology making them more productive is also making them more isolated.
- One in five Gen Zers say they feel more lonely since AI tools were introduced in the workplace.
- Over 20% of Gen Zers say AI tools have made their personal relationships with colleagues worse.
“[In the past], I would have somebody sit down and explain a task to me, walk me through their thinking and how they were taught,” says Aquino. “Whereas, what I’m seeing now is junior employees are just taking it upon themselves to use AI to help them.”
Karthik Karunanithi, a solution architect at IBM, shared a similar sentiment. As the manager of various junior engineers, he’s been able to view Gen Z’s relationship with AI up close. “AI didn’t really kill small talk. It killed the dumb question,” he says. “And those dumb questions were important.”
Karunanithi spoke of how seemingly “dumb questions” frequently led to conversations on larger projects and overall goals. “Now AI answers the question instantly and the conversation never happens,” he says.
Karunanithi surmised that a feeling of AI-driven insecurity may be leading to more isolation in the workplace. “There’s this growing feeling that if AI can answer something then asking a human means you weren’t good enough to figure it out yourself.”
One in five Gen Zers say they feel more lonely since AI tools were introduced in the workplace.
Adaptation, Not Apathy
The easy story here is the one society has been perpetuating about Gen Z for years: they’re anti-social, phone-addicted, allergic to the office. That story is wrong, or at least incomplete.
Gen Z didn't opt out of in-person work—they were never invited in. Many of them started their careers in virtual environments where there was no hallway, no coffee line, no after-work happy hour. The rituals that built relationships for previous generations simply weren't available.
They also watched closely as their parents' generation moved through layoffs, recessions, and reorgs that quietly rewrote the social contract between employees and employers. The lesson many Gen Zers learned was that loyalty isn't always reciprocated—and that autonomy and independence are safer bets than institutional belonging.
So when Gen Z keeps a careful distance at work, it isn't apathy. It's adaptation.
And here's the part the "anti-social generation" narrative misses: Gen Z is actively seeking human connection—they're just looking for it outside the workplace. Run clubs, book clubs, in-person hobby communities, and analog gatherings are booming among Gen Z perhaps because the workplace is no longer reliably providing what it used to: a place where human connection gives rise to the best outputs at work.
When Gen Z keeps a careful distance at work, it isn't apathy. It's adaptation.
Implications for People Leaders
If Gen Z is the leading edge of an AI-first workforce, then their experience is a preview of what's coming for everyone. The same dynamics—more AI, less friction, fewer organic moments of connection—are already showing up across cohorts. Gen Z is just feeling them first and most acutely.
That has real implications for people leaders. Organizations cannot keep treating AI adoption and company culture as separate initiatives overseen by different departments. The decisions made about how AI is deployed are also decisions about how, when, and whether coworkers connect with each other.
Where to start
During times of rapid change, it can feel difficult to keep up, whether you’re in the C-suite or just starting out. But by making intentional investments in workplace connection, leaders can help counteract AI isolation and build a more Gen Z-friendly workplace.
- Design connection into the workflow. If it isn't built in, it won't happen by accident —especially for employees whose earliest career memories are remote.
- Invest in early-career rituals. Onboarding cohorts, peer mentorship, in-person team-building, and structured cross-team pairings give Gen Z the reps in human collaboration that the pandemic and AI removed from the default workday.
- Rebuild trust deliberately. Trust is no longer a side effect of working together. Managers need to create the conditions for it through small, consistent moments—1:1s with real depth, transparency about decisions, and explicit invitations to disagree.
- Measure what matters. Track belonging, trust, and connection alongside productivity. If you only measure output, you'll only optimize for output—and you'll miss the human systems quietly hollowing out underneath.
- Don't slow AI. Surround it. The goal isn't to pull AI back. It's to make sure the productivity gains don't come at the cost of the relationships that make organizations resilient over time.
The Bottom Line
Gen Z isn't broken. They are showing us, in real time, what work looks like when AI scales faster than the human infrastructure around it.
“It went from something that was very hush-hush in the workplace to something that everyone in the office uses at least once or twice a day,” Aquino says.
The organizations that listen to that signal—and design accordingly—will be the ones that get the next decade of work right. The ones that don't will find themselves with highly productive, highly disconnected workforces, and a culture that's harder and harder to repair.
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