Hospitality workers felt less secure in their jobs when AI was added, experiments find

Framing mattered: scenarios in which AI replaced human staff produced greater job insecurity than scenarios in which AI augmented them. Even AI intended to augment workers raised insecurity, which suggests that reassurance about augmentation may not fully protect staff.

Organizational support did not significantly moderate the pathway through identity threat, while technology readiness did play a significant moderating role. Employees' own comfort with technology therefore appeared to shape how threatened they felt.

The study examined front-of-house AI in tourism and hospitality, comparing implementations designed to replace human workers with those designed to augment them. It measured how each affected employees' job insecurity.

Researchers ran three scenario-based experiments with employees from the US and UK, collecting data through Prolific and analyzing it with ANOVA and PROCESS modeling.

Results showed AI implementation increased job insecurity both directly and through perceived threats to identity value. Replacement scenarios produced more insecurity than augmentation scenarios, though augmentation still raised it.

Organizational support did not significantly moderate the identity-threat mediation, but technology readiness did, so employees more ready for technology responded differently from less ready colleagues.