Higher paying jobs with specialized knowledge and customer-facing jobs are most affected by AI.
AI is augmenting workers’ capabilities more than displacing them.
AI adoption and productivity do not correlate with standard of living or wages.
As of 2023, 3% of businesses, representing 16% of U.S. employment, reported using AI technologies (U.S. Census Bureau 2023). AI mostly affects jobs in higher-paying fields where a college education and analytical skills are used (Felten et al 2023, Kochhar 2024, Figure 1). Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher are more than twice as likely to be exposed to AI displacement (27%) compared to those with a high school diploma (12%). Women (21%) are at higher risk than men (17%), because they hold different job types (Kochhar 2023).
Generative AI, which is a machine learning (ML) tool that creates new images, text, or data, is expected to replace or complement clerical and technical work, ranging from banking clerks to architects and engineers (Brynjolfsson et al 2023, Briggs & Kodnani 2023, Figure 1). As with any new technology, AI is expected to increase jobs by creating a need for positions that do not currently exist, and to change the scope of work (MIT 2019, Briggs & Kodnani 2023).
Several studies have identified that as much as 80% of the workforce can allocate 10-20% of their workload to AI (Eloundou et al 2023, Walkowiak & MacDonald 2023). Rather than displacing workers, 27% of firms using AI are replacing workers’ tasks, with 5% of firms experiencing changes in employment as a result of AI (Bonney et al 2024).
Research from Europe shows that industries utilizing AI are seeing employment growth, particularly for younger and skilled workers (Albanesi et al 2023). Relatedly, countries with high female labor force participation saw employment for women increase in occupations with more exposure to AI (Albanesi et al 2025).
A study of customer support agents found that low-skilled workers saw increased productivity when using AI tools, with no effect on experienced and highly skilled workers’ output, indicating that productivity increases could be industry and even worker-specific (Brynjolfsson et al 2023). While AI has the capacity to augment workers’ capabilities, it will require investments from firms for retraining workers and rescoping job duties (Chui et al 2023).
The use of AI exposes workers, firms, and society to new risks including (Acemoglu 2021, Walkowiak & MacDonald 2023):
While generative AI is expected to add as much as $4.4 trillion to the global economy through increased productivity, this is not guaranteed to translate to higher wages or standards of living for workers (MIT 2019, Chui et al 2023). Data from Europe indicates that collective bargaining participation is a stronger indicator of wage determination and growth than AI exposure (Albanesi et al 2023).
Figure 1. Exposure to AI by worker characteristics and industry.
Figure adapted from Kochhar 2024 and Briggs & Kodnani 2023. Percentage of job exposure to AI disruption by worker characteristics (gender, education level) and by industry.
References
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