According to Fast Company, 2025 was the definitive year AI took over the workplace, evolving from a novelty to a core component of daily operations. A McKinsey study highlighted this surge, showing generative AI use in organizations leapt from 33% in 2023 to 79% in 2025, with overall AI use hitting 88%. The technology became embedded as a performance goal-setter, an on-call coach or therapist, and a silent brainstorm partner. In hiring, AI-generated résumés submitted on LinkedIn saw a massive 45% increase this year alone. Candidates now routinely use AI to find companies, tailor applications, and even network, changing the fundamental gateway to employment.
The AI Overlord Problem
Now, here’s the thing. An AI that sets your performance goals and acts as your therapist is a staggering conflict of interest wrapped in an algorithm. Think about it. How candid can you be with a “coach” that reports directly to the “boss” module? This isn’t just a tool; it’s a panopticon with a friendly UI. The article paints a picture of seamless integration, but I’m deeply skeptical about the human cost. When your productivity is constantly measured and optimized by a non-human entity, where does creativity or simple human fallibility go? It feels like we’ve skipped the debate about ethics and worker autonomy and sprinted straight into implementation because, well, the graphs go up.
The Résumé Arms Race
And that 45% surge in AI-generated résumés? It’s basically an arms race where the first casualty is truth. If everyone is using AI to craft the perfect application, how does anyone stand out? More importantly, how do hiring managers find genuine skill? It creates a bizarre feedback loop: AI writes the résumé, AI screens the résumé, and maybe soon, AI interviews for the job. The human gets squeezed out at both ends. This doesn’t feel like efficiency; it feels like we’re outsourcing the very human process of matchmaking to bots that are excellent at pattern recognition but terrible at spotting potential, grit, or cultural fit.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So what’s the endgame? The adoption numbers are undeniable, but they measure spread, not success or sustainability. We’ve seen this movie before with other “revolutionary” workplace tech that promised liberation but often delivered surveillance and burnout. The real test for 2026 and beyond won’t be if AI can do more tasks, but if it makes work more human—or less. Can these systems be designed with real guardrails and transparency? Or are we just building a more polite, more pervasive cage? The fact that it’s your boss, your therapist, and your partner all in one should give everyone pause. That’s a lot of power in one black box.
