Employee well-being remains a significant concern for organisations, as fewer than 35% of employees report good levels of overall wellness, according to Gartner.
The Gartner survey of 11 838 employees conducted in 1Q26 found that while many employees agree that AI is good for their organisation, they are less convinced that AI is good for them. Forty-seven percent of employees who are expected to use AI in their work report resistance to adopting it.
“While AI is often associated with efficiency and automation, organisations can also use AI to support the human side of work,” says Nicole Paripurana, senior principal analyst in the Gartner HR Practice. “AI can be leveraged by organisations to identify unhealthy work patterns, reduce friction, personalise support and proactively address wellbeing risks.”
Gartner has identified three ways that HR leaders can use AI to help improve employee well-being:
Discover wellbeing opportunities
AI can identify patterns and signals that may indicate emerging challenges for individual employees.
By analysing factors such as frequent context-switching, exclusion signals, shifts in communication tone, and signs of disengagement or exclusion, AI can provide employees with early insights into potential risks before they escalate into burnout, disengagement, or reduced performance.
This enhanced visibility enables organizations to move beyond periodic surveys and take a more proactive, data-driven approach to supporting employee wellbeing and empowering healthier employees.
Protect employees’ wellbeing
AI can help employers identify and respond to workplace risks by surfacing indicators of burnout, excessive workloads, toxic behaviors, bias, and boundary violations. These insights enable organisations to take earlier action to protect employee well-being and foster healthier work environments.
“The future of AI at work isn’t simply about productivity,” says Paripurana. “The organisations that see the greatest value from AI will be those that use it to improve employee well-being, build resilience and create healthier, more sustainable ways of working.”
Personalise employees’ wellbeing
Organisations can leverage AI to gain a better understanding of employees’ wellbeing preferences, recovery styles and needs, which will allow them to tailor well-being support to the individual. This can include meeting toleration, connection preferences, stress signal opt-in, and customised wellbeing nudges.
“To empower employees, wellbeing must be embedded into the flow of work,” says Paripurana. “A few personalised inputs can make an experience feel meaningfully tailored to an employee’s specific needs.”