AI's Impact on Jobs

Artificial intelligence has the potential to make the workplace much more accessible. 🗣️ Automatic speech recognition and visual description software are among the artificial intelligence technologies enhancing workplace accessibility like never before. With live captioning, voice commands and transcription capabilities, these tools can foster a more inclusive and productive work environment. 🤖 "AI is going to be hugely impactful for disabled people in the workplace because it will hopefully make accessibility mainstream and available to everyone, just like Apple did with the iPhone or Amazon with Alexa devices," says Robbie Crow, a workplace disability inclusion expert. 🌎 The World Economic Forum 2023 report on AI and disability inclusion highlights that excluding people with disabilities can cost up to 7% of a country’s GDP. Implementing a disability-inclusive business strategy with assistive AI could result in 28% higher revenue and 30% higher profit margins for companies. 🦾 The benefits for everyone are clear, says Crow, with technologies that can simplify tasks and make consuming large amounts of material much easier. But AI is also having a wider impact for people who are blind, deaf or neurodivergent. 🖥️ "AI can produce descriptions for any images – graphs, images and infographics, etc – and it can even tell you what’s on the screen in real-time. That’s something blind people have always been missing out on unless they had human support," says Crow. 👀 However, companies must also be aware of AI's potential weaknesses, Crow adds. "AI in recruitment, for example, isn't yet ready to remove biases towards people who can't make eye contact, who make spelling mistakes in applications or who answer questions literally. AI will have a positive impact, but we need to be mindful of ethical AI and train it to remove inherent discrimination across the board." How else could AI make the workplace more accessible in 2025 and beyond? Weigh in using the hashtag #BigIdeas2025. And check out the rest of this year’s Big Ideas below. UK: https://lnkd.in/gP_88hj8 Europe: https://lnkd.in/BI25Europe ✍️ Neha Jain Kale and Jennifer Ryan Sources: World Economic Forum: https://lnkd.in/gttNFNJR

How can leaders transform their teams to be AI-first? It starts with mindset. An AI-first mindset means: Seeing AI as an opportunity, not a threat. Viewing AI as a tool to augment teams, not just automate tasks. Using AI to reimagine work, not just optimize work. As leaders, it’s on us to build this mindset within our teams. Here are 5 ways we do this at HubSpot: Use AI daily: Lead by example—trust grows when teams see leaders embrace AI themselves. I use it everyday and share very specific use cases with our company on how I use it. Now every leader is doing the same with their teams. The result is that we will have almost everyone in the company use AI daily by the end of year. Apply constraints: Give clear, focused challenges. We kept headcount flat in Support while growing the customer base by 20%+. Result - the team innovated with AI and over achieved the target. Smart constraints drive innovation. Establish tiger teams: Empower small, agile groups to experiment, innovate, and teach the organization. We have AI Tiger teams in every function - they share progress in Slack channels and there is so much energy with small groups experimenting and learning. Be a learn-it-all: Foster a culture of continuous learning. Share openly about successes and failures alike. We have dedicated 2 full days to learning and scaling with AI this quarter as a company - we have lined up great speakers, ways to experiment and gamified learning. Measure progress and share it: Measure which teams are completing learning modules, using AI everyday and share that openly. A little healthy competition goes a long way in driving AI-fluency. AI isn’t just a technology shift. It’s fundamentally reshaping how work gets done—and that requires shifting our mindset first. Leaders who embrace AI now will unlock creativity, performance, and impact. Are you building an AI-first mindset with your team? #Leadership #AI #Innovation #Mindset #FutureOfWork

My latest column in The New York Times is about a worrying new trend I'm seeing: AI being used to replace college graduates in entry-level knowledge work. "Employers are saying, ‘These tools are so good that I no longer need marketing analysts, finance analysts and research assistants.’” says Molly Kinder of Brookings. One executive told me his company no longer hires anything below an L5 software engineer. Another told me his start-up has 1 data scientist doing the work of 75 people. And evidence for rising unemployment for college grads is showing up in recent economic data. I talked to researchers, CEOs and young job-seekers about what's happening, and how AI is knocking out the bottom rungs of the career ladder. https://lnkd.in/gXyZGdyH

Something unusual is happening in high-skill services. The chart below tracks employment in Finance, Insurance, Information, and Professional & Technical Services. Historically, these sectors in aggregate never saw job growth stall for over two years outside of a recession. Yet that’s exactly what’s happened since late 2022. And it’s not due to weak demand—economic growth has been strong, tech adoption has surged, and businesses have continued investing in digital transformation and AI. So why has employment flatlined? Part of the answer may be AI itself. These industries are at the frontier of generative AI adoption—filled with roles that involve writing, analysis, planning, and coding. The very tasks that today’s AI models are best at automating or augmenting. This could be the early signs of a structural shift—from steady headcount growth to a new era of productivity without proportional hiring. That could also be one of the explanations for why new college grads are struggling to find a job. The future of white-collar work may be arriving faster than we thought. What do you think? #labormarkets #futureofwork #ai #recruitment

So much has been said and written about how AI is changing the job market. Time for some myth busting. You’ll be surprised by some of the findings. The latest PwC AI Jobs Barometer paints a much more complex picture than the headlines suggest. The biggest misconception? That AI adoption means mass job losses, wage suppression, and a deskilled workforce. 𝟭. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆: Industries most exposed to AI are seeing productivity grow 3x faster than those with low exposure. AI isn’t just replacing tasks - it’s enabling output at scale. 𝟮. 𝗪𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀:  In high-AI exposure sectors, wages are rising 2x as fast as in less-exposed ones. Even automatable roles see strong wage growth, debunking fears of a universal race to the bottom. 𝟯. 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:   AI-exposed roles are growing, not shrinking. While the nature of tasks is changing, demand remains strong - especially in augmentable jobs that combine human skills with AI. 𝟰. 𝗗𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀:   Job ads in AI-heavy sectors are dropping degree requirements faster, opening up access and reducing formal barriers to entry. 𝟱. 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀:   Rather than deskilling, AI is increasing the complexity and decision-making nature of many roles - requiring more strategic, not mechanical, input. 𝟲. 𝗜𝗻𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆:   While benefits are evident, the report flags a risk of polarisation: between companies that adopt AI fast - and those that lag. Gaps could widen in pay, productivity, and talent attraction. 𝟳.𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱:   Employers aren’t just hiring engineers. There’s rising demand for data-literate business talent: managers, analysts, marketers - all needing fluency in AI tools. 𝟴. 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱:   The pace of AI impact differs by country - but labour markets are adjusting, not collapsing.   AI isn’t simply replacing jobs. It’s reshaping them - and redefining what skills, education, and value look like in the workplace.   Source: PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫: https://lnkd.in/dkqhnxdg

We’ve all heard the warnings. “AI will eliminate half of all white-collar jobs.” “Unemployment could hit 20%.” These claims, once brushed off as Silicon Valley scaremongering, are now being repeated not by fringe commentators, but by the people building the technology. This week, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could wipe out 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within just five years. IBM has already paused hiring for back-office roles - 7,800 of them - expecting AI to fill the gap. The question isn’t whether AI will change work. It’s whether we’ve really grasped just how quickly, and just how profoundly, that change is coming. And what if those inside the AI labs are right? Let’s start with the numbers. McKinsey estimates generative AI could add up to €7.9 trillion in global annual value, with 75% of the gains concentrated in customer operations, marketing, software engineering and R&D. In Ireland, AI could contribute an extra €40–45 billion to GDP by 2033, largely through productivity growth. But this won’t be growth that comes quietly. McKinsey estimates 60–70% of all work hours globally could be automated. For Ireland, this matters. A national study last year suggested that 33% of Irish jobs are at risk of significant disruption, and 30% may be vulnerable to outright replacement by AI. Entry-level white-collar roles are squarely in the firing line. These roles have traditionally served as the stepping stones for new graduates. If AI automates those first rungs, how do people start climbing the ladder? Already, we are seeing a shift. The World Economic Forum projects that by 2027, there will be a global net loss of 14 million jobs, with most of the eliminations concentrated in clerical, admin, and data-processing roles. That brings us to a critical 5–10 year window. Between now and 2027, we’ll see gradual erosion in support and entry roles. Between 2028 and 2031, pressure to cut costs, coupled with rapid AI advancement, may trigger a phase of mass displacement. And by the early to mid 2030s, Ireland - and the world - may face a moment of reckoning. Either we adapt through rapid upskilling and new job creation, or we enter a period of structural unemployment that will demand major social intervention. This isn’t just theory. It’s visible in hiring patterns, strategy papers, and AI deployments already reshaping businesses. Ireland’s AI Strategy aims for 75% of enterprises to adopt AI by 2030. That’s ambitious - and it’s necessary. But it must be matched by equally ambitious reskilling, education reform, and protections for those most exposed. Otherwise, we risk turning this productivity revolution into a social crisis. We need resources HEAVILY investing in this area. So, what if they’re right? What if they’re not exaggerating? What if this is the moment just before everything changes? We still have time to prepare. But we no longer have time to ignore the warning signs.

When you look at the data, AI is clearly not diminishing human labor, but redefining and enhancing it across the board. PwC's new 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer draws on nearly a billion job ads and thousands of financial reports to show that AI is boosting productivity, increasing wages, and evolving roles, even those most susceptible to automation. The report is well worth a look. Here are some of the standout findings: 📈 AI-exposed industries see 3x faster productivity growth. Industries most able to use AI achieved a 27% growth in revenue per employee between 2018–2024, compared to just 8.5% in the least exposed sectors. 💰 AI boosts wages—especially for those with skills. Workers with AI skills earn, on average, 56% more than their peers in the same roles without such skills. This wage premium has grown from 25% just a year ago, signaling rising demand and perceived value for AI capabilities. 📊 Wage growth outpaces in AI-heavy sectors. Wages grew 2x faster in industries most exposed to AI (16.7%) compared to the least exposed (7.9%) from 2018–2024. Contrary to fears, even highly automatable jobs are seeing wage gains, suggesting AI is augmenting rather than replacing human value. 🚺 Women dominate AI-exposed roles—creating both promise and risk. In every country studied, women hold a greater share of AI-exposed jobs than men, with superior scope for augmentation as well as automation. 🧠 AI accelerates a “skills earthquake.” The skills required in AI-exposed jobs are changing 66% faster than in less exposed roles—more than 2.5x the pace of change last year. This is especially dramatic in automatable jobs, suggesting roles are evolving toward higher complexity and value. 🎓 Degrees matter less in an AI-driven job market. Degree requirements have declined more steeply for AI-exposed jobs, as companies prioritize up-to-date skills over formal credentials. This may reflect the “democratization of expertise,” where AI helps workers acquire and apply expert knowledge rapidly. 🧑💻 Automatable jobs are being upskilled, not eliminated. Despite being most vulnerable to automation, automatable roles are experiencing faster wage growth and greater skills disruption than augmentable ones. These jobs are being reshaped toward more complex, judgment-based tasks that demand higher capabilities. 🏭 AI job demand surges across all sectors—even traditional ones. The share of job postings requiring AI skills is growing in every industry, including low-tech sectors like agriculture and construction. 🧑🤝🧑 CEOs see AI as a people-powered value engine. 70% of global CEOs expect AI to transform value creation in their companies, and 82% say it hasn’t reduced headcount. Workers agree: 70% of GenAI users report more creativity, learning, and quality in their work, showing AI is enhancing—not eroding—human potential.

There's one use case for AI agents not being talked about enough: volatile or seasonal industries. Think about what crypto, fintech, travel, and even retail have in common. Their surges in volume (some random, some not) and customer inquiries make it extremely challenging for traditional CX systems to keep up. But where legacy systems struggle, AI systems step up. Here's how: 1. Scalability When inquiry volumes spike, AI agents can handle the influx without missing a beat. There are no delays from hiring surplus human agents to handle more volume, making AI agents both cost- and process-efficient. 2. Consistency Whether it's 1K or 1M customer inquiries, AI agents guarantee the same level of accuracy and precision every time. Humans need downtime, AI doesn't. 3. Prioritization Customer inquiries come with varying degrees of complexity. While AI agents take care of the low-hanging fruit and repeatable tasks, human agents can focus on the high-touch cases that demand personal attention. Take Coinbase’s customer support, for example. They handle $226B in quarterly trading volume in 100+ countries. Their margin of error is slim, and CX mistakes could cost billions. Instead of leaning on human CX alone, they use AI agents to: • Handle thousands of messages per hour • Reduced customer service handling time • Improve search relevance for their help center The enterprises we work with at Decagon experience the same benefits using AI customer service agents—scalable support, no gaps in performance, and higher customer satisfaction. Just because your industry is volatile doesn't mean your CX should be.

The Future of Inclusion: How AI Is Creating Jobs for Those Unable to Work Traditionally   While scrolling i came across this video showcasing a remarkable initiative in Japan, where individuals who are unable to work on-site due to illness or disability are remotely controlling robots to perform tasks in real-world environments. It’s a profound reminder of how AI, when applied thoughtfully, can transform barriers into opportunities and allow everyone to contribute meaningfully to society.   At SThree, we see this as the future of work: AI not as a substitute for human capability, but as a bridge. It’s technology enabling talent – giving people the power to participate and make an impact, regardless of physical limitations.   Our own “Ways of Working” approach embraces this philosophy. As we introduce AI and automation into our operations, we are committed to maintaining the essential human element – the insight, empathy, and adaptability that only people bring. It’s not just about efficiency; it’s about reimagining the workplace to be more inclusive, adaptable, and empowering.   The story in this video is an inspiring example of AI-driven inclusion. It’s about creating value in ways we hadn’t envisioned and empowering individuals who might otherwise be overlooked. This is what it looks like when technology serves humanity.   As AI continues to shape our world, the question we’re asking at SThree is: How can we use these tools to make work not only smarter but also more inclusive and meaningful? We believe the answer lies in keeping people at the heart of every innovation.   This is the future we’re building toward – one where AI amplifies human potential and creates a more equitable world of work.

The latest study from the Council of Economic Advisers, The White House states that ~10% of jobs are vulnerable to AI disruption. That may seem alarming, but let’s take a step back. In 2018, 60% of the jobs Americans held didn't even exist in 1940—created by technologies that emerged over the years (David Autor). Here’s the real concern: Many AI-vulnerable jobs haven’t evolved to match their increasing complexity. Workers in these roles are more exposed to disruption because they haven’t been given the chance to upskill. But this isn't new. Economic evolution is the hallmark of a dynamic economy. Just like we’ve adapted to past technologies, workers and industries will adapt to AI. The key lies in how we approach it. Why businesses should care: Organizations that proactively identify and support employees vulnerable to AI disruption aren’t just doing good—they’re making smart financial decisions. 💡 Investing in upskilling and mobility for these workers could unlock millions in retention and productivity. Mass layoffs due to AI aren’t likely. The real shift? Slower hiring and reduced demand for certain roles. We’re already seeing fewer job postings for writers, coders, and even artists. So, what activities are at risk? Roles involved in processing information, analyzing data, scheduling, and administrative tasks are prime targets. Industries to watch? Architecture, engineering, legal, computer science, and mathematics. Surprising jobs at risk of AI disruption: Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers Nuclear Power Reactor Operators Private Detectives and Investigators Commercial and Industrial Designers These highly specialized roles, which traditionally require significant human judgment, are surprisingly vulnerable to AI-driven changes. Business leaders, what barriers are preventing you from launching upskilling initiatives to future-proof your workforce? The future of work is evolving, but we can shape how it unfolds. #FutureOfWork #AIandJobs #Upskilling #WorkforceTransformation #AI