If you’ve worked in any office recently — or Zoomed into one — you’ve probably heard some version of this:

“AI’s going to take all our jobs.”

“AI’s going to make my job easier.”

“AI’s already writing my emails better than I can.”

“What’s AI?”

And voilà, you’ve just met the four AI archetypes quietly (or not so quietly) shaping the future of work.

Thanks to McKinsey’s recent report on AI in the workplace, we now have names for these folks:
🟢 Zoomers
🌸 Bloomers
🌧️ Gloomers
💀 Doomers

Understanding them isn’t just a fun exercise in workplace anthropology — it might be the secret to leading your team through the biggest tech shift since the internet learned how to dunk on us with memes.

Meet the Archetypes: Your Team, Rebranded

🌸 The Bloomers

AKA: The optimists. The “AI will help us do more meaningful work” crowd.

Bloomers believe in balance. They want AI to be developed responsibly, with a thoughtful rollout, diverse inputs, and plenty of employee involvement. Think of them as the team members already automating their spreadsheets and suggesting ethical guidelines in the same breath.

How to spot one:
They’ve probably already built a personal GPT to help them manage team OKRs. They’re also gently nudging the company to start an “AI Ethics Friday.”

How to lead them:
Empower them. Bloomers are your built-in change agents — they just need the green light to help scale responsible AI use across teams.

🟢 The Zoomers

AKA: The speed demons. “Let the devs handle it — let’s ship.”

Zoomers trust the tech and just want to get moving. They’re the ones testing plugins, pushing pilots, and asking, “Can we get API access to this thing today?”

How to spot one:
They’ve found a way to run meetings via Slackbot and are currently rebuilding your onboarding docs with AI-generated gifs. (We’re not mad, we’re impressed.)

How to lead them:
Channel their energy. Pair them with Bloomers to balance speed with structure. Give them sandboxes to experiment safely — and maybe rein them in when they try to replace the finance team with an LLM.

🌧️ The Gloomers

AKA: The skeptics. “Let’s pump the brakes.”

Gloomers aren’t anti-AI — they just want proof that it works, is safe, and won’t accidentally send customer data to a toaster in the cloud. They’re the pragmatic center of the organization, asking the hard questions.

How to spot one:
They show up to AI demos with a list of 23 “edge cases” and two case studies printed out and highlighted.

How to lead them:
Appreciate their concern. Involve them early in tool assessments, governance conversations, and risk audits. Gloomers will become trusted advisors if they feel heard.

💀 The Doomers

AKA: The existential philosophers. “We’re training our replacements.”

Doomers have lost faith. They view AI as a threat to jobs, equity, and humanity’s general well-being. And honestly? They’re not wrong to feel that way.

How to spot one:
They refer to ChatGPT as “Skynet Lite.” They’ve read every op-ed on AI ethics, and they probably sent them to you at 2am.

How to lead them:
Start with empathy. Fear of displacement is real — especially when 92 million jobs are expected to shift in the coming years. Help Doomers see the possibilities, not just the risks. Offer training pathways. Highlight human-in-the-loop models. Or at the very least, don’t make every meeting about “efficiency gains.”

Why This Matters

It turns out your workplace isn’t “for” or “against” AI — it’s a spectrum. And every archetype brings something to the table:

• Zoomers push us forward.
• Bloomers make sure we don’t trip on the way.
• Gloomers point out the potholes.
• Doomers remind us there’s a world beyond efficiency.

Successful AI adoption won’t be about convincing everyone to feel the same — it’ll be about meeting people where they are and giving them space to learn, test, and shape the future together.

Final thought:
You don’t need everyone to be a Bloomer. But if your workplace has room for each archetype to thrive — that’s when AI becomes something bigger than a tool. It becomes a team sport.

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