The Rise and Fall of AI's Benefits: Investigating the Curvilinear Relationship Between Employee-Ai Collaboration and Successful Aging at Work

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into workplaces presents both opportunities and challenges for aging workforces, yet existing research lacks a nuanced understanding of how employee-AI collaboration influences successful aging at work. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we theorize that employee-AI collaboration has an inverted U-shaped relationship with successful aging at work, mediated by job crafting towards strengths. We further identify AI ethical anxiety as a critical boundary condition that intensifies this curvilinear relationship. Data collected from 312 older employees across three waves supported the inverted U-shaped moderated mediation model. Specifically, we found that increases in employee-AI collaboration are associated with higher job crafting towards strengths and more successful aging at work up to an inflection point, beyond which further employee-AI collaboration yields detrimental effects. AI ethical anxiety accelerates the decline of employee-AI collaboration's positive effects while exacerbating its negative consequences. Our findings challenge prevailing linear assumptions about the influences of employee-AI collaboration and highlight the need for a balanced and ethically conscious AI implementation that safeguards older employees' career development.