Synergy of Silicon and Sentiment: The Interplay of Emotional Intelligence, Technology Acceptance, and Employee Well-Being in Human-AI Collaborative Workspaces

As AI and robots infiltrate our workplaces, many of us can’t help but wonder - what will this mean for us humans? We sought to understand if emotional intelligence - that uniquely human capacity to perceive, make sense of, and regulate emotions - remains valuable amid increasing human-AI collaboration. And do our attitudes toward these technologies influence how we experience wellbeing at work? To investigate, we surveyed 257 professionals across diverse industries. Some already worked hand-in-hand with AI systems or robotic colleagues daily, while others had not yet entered that frontier. Using validated assessments, we measured emotional intelligence, attitudes toward AI/robots, and overall workplace well-being. The findings contained fascinating revelations. Contrary to fears that AI will dehumanize work, employees collaborating with these technologies reported higher wellbeing compared to non-collaborators. Rather than diminishing the human experience, introducing AI and robots may be enhancing it by providing opportunities for learning, growth and skills enrichment. Moreover, emotional intelligence emerged as a powerful asset for maintaining wellbeing - whether you collaborated with machines or not. However, attitudes mattered too. For those lower in emotional intelligence, having more positive attitudes toward working alongside AI/robots was linked to greater overall workplace well-being. These findings contribute to the growing body of literature on human-AI interaction in the workplace by providing a theoretical basis for understanding how individual differences in emotional capabilities and technology attitudes shape experiences in AI/robot-augmented work environments.