Sensing Into Self-Doubt With AI Tools

Today, Shell, we are putting you in the hot seat and going behind the scenes of our own organisation and how we've been integrating the use of AI tools into the way we work together on a day-to-day basis.

And it's a challenge that we know many teams and organisations are actually facing right now.

Yeah, and Katie, actually, in July 2026, we went and we measured with more than 800 Australian workers, all sorts of different industries and roles, to just check in on exactly how were they going.

And what was so interesting is that 47% of Australian workers told us that they are now regularly using AI in their roles, so almost half the workforce is And then what was fascinating was just understanding where was it helping improve efficiency and performance? We definitely saw that it is having positive impacts around performing well.

Not that much yet versus those who are rarely using it.

Honestly, it's kind of a little par on par.

But I think the more used to those tools we perhaps get and the more mastery we have in them, perhaps we'll continue to see that differentiation.

But we were also curious, as we always are, Katie, about what was the impact on their wellbeing and particularly around the psychosocial safety.

And for me, really, the alarm bell was around workers who were telling us that they were burnt out in terms of clinical burnout.

So they're exhausted, they're feeling more cynical at work.

They're feeling like no matter how hard they try, it's not really going to make a difference.

So that loss of professional efficacy that is associated with clinical burnout is that for these workers, they were much more likely if they were regularly using AI to to be reporting clinical burnout signs.

And so we were really curious, kind of like what's underneath that? What's driving that in particular for them? And there were really kind of three things that stood out for me in all of that.

There was this loss of opportunities to use their strengths, the things they're good at and enjoy doing at work.

So things that give us that state of flow where we get to feel like we're in the zone and one with the music.

And for those burnt out workers regularly using AI, only 18% of them are saying, yep, I get to use my strengths as I'm going about my job now.

I think this is a lot of the concern about AI bot sitting that many of us are finding we're now doing in our roles.

And that was compared to if I was rarely using AI, but I was still reporting burnout.

If that was my situation, I was still using my strengths 40% of the time in my job.

So 18% versus 40%, it's quite a big gap there.

And it gets wide, particularly around that use of AI.

The second one I thought was really fascinating was just how much extra self-doubt, self-judgment, self-criticism regular users of AI were having in that category as well.

So 74% levels of self-doubt versus 60% for those rarely using it.

So again, 14%, that's quite a big gap.

And then the third one that was in that mix, and I think this is a really interesting kind of trio of factors for us to be thinking about for psychosocial safety and wellbeing as leaders and champions of wellbeing, and that was the isolating themselves from others.