As a psychotherapist, Candice Thompson is used to dealing with clients who are feeling less than optimistic. But these days, she is hearing more than the usual melancholy.
“In the past, someone could say, ‘This is the end of the world,’ and it’s clearly psychosis,” said Thompson, who is based in Menlo Park. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh, a majority of the things you’re saying are fears that we have to consider.’”
Several Silicon Valley therapists report a booming business in treating tech workers and a deeper than usual level of existential despair. The typical Silicon Valley baggage of burnout and layoffs has taken on an apocalyptic undertone, therapists say, with many of patients’ concerns related directly to their work in, and use of, artificial intelligence. Thompson says approximately 80% of her patients work on or with AI. She dates the deluge to the past three to six months.
The mood reflects a shift in the perception of AI from a useful tool to a source of possible personal and professional upheaval. A 2025 Pew survey found that 52% of U.S. workers are worried about AI’s impact on their jobs, and 32% felt it would lead to fewer jobs. In the Bay Area, that anxiety is colliding with an increasingly unstable tech economy that saw more than 35,000 layoffs in 2025, according to Layoffs FYI.
‘I’ve never had clients talk about the end of the world the way that they are right now.’
Candice Thompson, psychotherapist in Menlo Park
Many workers seem particularly troubled about the potential consequences of what they are building. “Outside of the Bay Area, it probably seems like anxiety about science fiction,” said Alex Oliver-Gans, a San Francisco-based psychotherapist, who estimates that 40% of his patients work in AI. Part of the struggle, he says, is the pace of “working 60 or 70 hours a week in an environment that’s focused on introducing guardrails against cataclysmic outcomes.” That, Oliver-Gans says, “is going to impact your mental health.”
“There’s just a lot of fear of the unknown there,” he added.
Even in the days of multimillion-dollar signing bonuses for top talent, money is apparently not buying happiness. Cashing in can be as hard as crashing out, therapists say. The talent-war jockeying and job-switching are creating their own feelings of anxiety and FOMO. And working at a big AI lab doesn’t guarantee job security. In late March, OpenAI killed off Sora, its generative video tool, and Meta is cutting 10% of employees in Reality Labs, its VR division.
“All of my clients feel like they’re disposable,” said Thompson, noting that they’re under pressure to prove their value even as they fear they’re making themselves obsolete. And AI’s promise of efficiency is raising expectations and increasing workloads. “It’s causing more work for my clients than actually making their work more efficient,” she said. “Because AI is supposed to be so helpful, their output now needs to be higher.”
Many employees seek support from AI chatbots, which can add to the problem. “Probably 25% of my clients will reference the conversations that they’re having with AI to talk about their emotions,” said Thompson. Some advice is innocuous, but some “is pretty dangerous.” She’s seen chatbots encourage codependency and advise clients to tolerate narcissistic behavior. Working in AI is no protection from AI. “Anyone’s vulnerable to it,” she said. “It’s easy, and it’s right there.”
Thompson positions herself as an “AI-free” therapist, with a badge on her homepage. She avoids AI-generated visit summaries, lest they hallucinate issues. Several patients report errors made by AI transcription tools in their primary care records, she said. “The information is wrong, as the AI heard different words, [so] in their medical charts is this inaccurate information.”
Many patients have expressed concerns about building technologies that imperil humanity — and about working for companies that may not pay enough oversight to such issues. “There’s stress around how this ship is being steered,” said Oliver-Gans. “Like, who’s donating, what political causes, and the news about the Department of Defense contracts.” He added, “Political developments definitely impact morale.”
But most of his patients aren’t leaving their jobs, as they opt to influence from within, aiming for “a better outcome for both the technology and the world.”
The AI angst is fueling the appetite for in-person therapy, said Fiona Brandon, a Noe Valley psychotherapist, who said more of her tech clients are requesting face-to-face sessions.
That stands in contrast to the growing prevalence of video therapy. By 2023, 89% of psychologists were providing telehealth, according to the American Psychological Association, a trend that began during COVID and has continued out of convenience. But frazzled AI engineers have been specifically seeking out Brandon’s couch. “They’re so burned out on the screen that they prefer to have therapy in person,” she said.
The demand for face-to-face therapy is running into a dearth of therapists. In 2025, California had a shortage of more than 55,000 (opens in new tab) licensed behavioral-health clinicians; in Santa Clara County, some psychiatry departments report a 40% vacancy rate for positions.
Brandon says she has observed a shift lately among her AI-industry patients: Where there was once excitement and a feeling that they were “pushing society” forward, they now frequently vent about an “atmosphere that has gotten a lot more complex and draining.” Symptoms manifest as poor sleep, digestive issues, and social withdrawal.
AI workers likely won’t get much relief from their employers. As competition among the frontier AI labs heats up, the pressure to perform is only intensifying.
“There’s a kind of war going on about who’s going to win the AI race, and it’s causing people anxiety and burnout,” said Brandon. “You work at an intense pace, and it triggers other issues from someone’s past.”