In today’s digital era, many employees, especially those in lower-status positions, have low trust in artificial intelligence (AI). This distrust not only hinders the potential of AI to enhance workplace productivity, but it can also exacerbate existing inequalities. We propose that AI distrust among low-status employees stems from threats to their psychological safety, where the presence of AI amplifies feelings of insecurity regarding one’s organizational standing. To address AI-induced threats to psychological safety among low-status employees, we introduce status affirmation—a novel intervention where individuals recall moments of being valued and respected by their colleagues within their groups—to boost their psychological safety and facilitate AI adoption among these employees. Furthermore, we distinguish our concept of status affirmation from self-affirmation (i.e., reflecting on self-values), both theoretically and empirically. We tested our model across three studies. A pilot study confirmed that low-status employees experienced lower psychological safety and trust in AI, reducing their willingness to adopt this technology. In an online experiment (Study 1), status affirmation increased low-status participants’ intentions to use AI by enhancing their psychological safety and subsequent trust in AI and AI adoption. We replicated these findings through a longitudinal field experiment at a large energy firm in China (Study 2). Our research shows that status affirmation can mitigate psychological barriers to adopting AI technology, while also demonstrating that status affirmations may be a critical tool for reducing workplace inequalities.
