The “Circle of Anxiety” around AI, as wonderfully articulated by Emily Y. Yang, is real and intensifying.

PM Wong’s May Day Rally address acknowledged the very real anxieties people feel about being left behind. We are in the midst of a massive transformation where the pressure to adapt to new digital technologies can often lead to what I’ve previously discussed as technostress.

What’s increasingly coming through — in conversations, workshops, and even from my recent talk at TMS APAC — is that many of the biggest risks are still invisible. The strong engagement on my post around technostress, family spillover, and behavioural shifts suggests this is very much on people’s minds.

When tech and AI are introduced rapidly, without enough attention to human adaptation, we start to see:

• Anxiety loops
• Blurred boundaries
• Coping behaviours like shadow AI

— all of which sit at the intersection of wellbeing and cyber risk.

We must move beyond just measuring ROI and start asking: are our people actually thriving in this new environment?