Table of Contents Expand Table of Contents Task Exposure: The Metric to Watch History Says Disruption Arrives in Waves—Not Overnight Where AI Augments Rather Than Replaces: A Middle-Class Reboot? The Bottom Line Is AI Coming for Your Job? Here's How to Tell By Adam Hayes Full Bio Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland.Adam's new book, "Irrational Together: The Social Forces That Invisibly Shape Our Economic Behavior" (University of Chicago Press) is a must-read at the intersection of behavioral economics and sociology that reshapes how we think about the social underpinnings of our financial choices. Learn about our editorial policies Updated June 09, 2025 Fact checked by Stella Osoba Fact checked by Stella Osoba Full Bio Stella Osoba is the Senior Editor of trading and investing at Investopedia. She co-founded and chaired Women in Technical Analysis. She has 15+ years of experience as a financial writer and technical analyst. Learn about our editorial policies A line of job seekers looking for jobs that may soon no longer exist with the growth of generative AI. See More skynesher / Getty Images Close Back in 2023, Goldman Sachs warned that generative AI could put 300 million jobs at risk worldwide. By 2025, experts warn that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs—and spike unemployment to 10%-20% over the next several years. Large language models (LLMs) like Claude or ChatGPT can now write marketing copy, compose poetry and short stories, draft legal memos, and debug code in seconds. It can search the web, collate sources, generate research summaries, and even spit out polished slide decks. That makes many people wonder: Is my job next? Recent research suggests the answer could depend less on your job title and more on the bundle of tasks you perform each day. Think of tasks as the sub-units of work that fill your calendar: drafting an invoice, negotiating with a supplier, sketching a storyboard frame, reconciling a ledger entry, or writing some code. Depending on how any of these tasks can be automated with AI, you might or might not start to worry. Below, we explain how to gauge your risk and potential upside amid the AI rollout. Key takeaways The more of your daily tasks that large-language models (LLMs) can already handle, the higher your displacement risk.Workers whose task mix ranges from easily automated to hard-to-automate will likely fare better than specialists who do one thing well.With the right design and policy, the technology could revive middle-skill, middle-income work rather than destroy it. Task Exposure: The Metric to Watch No surprise here: jobs composed mainly of tasks that AI can do entirely are most at risk. On the other hand, those that involve at least some human-only tasks appear to be safe (for now), as employees shift to the creative, client-facing, uniquely human tasks that AI still can’t do. Run a mini-audit on yourself: list your top 10 weekly tasks and tick off any that a GPT-4-level model could do today. If AI could handle more than 50%, that signals displacement risk; under 30% suggests that AI could provide productive augmentation. Example Tasks-at-Risk Task Likelihood an LLM Can Do It Well Today Draft a marketing email announcing a new product High Translate a memo from English to Spanish High Summarize a 20-page research article into five bullet points High Proofread an article or blog post for grammar and style High Generate a first-pass legal memorandum citing precedent Moderate Build a financial model with bespoke tax rules in Excel Moderate Analyze customer sentiment from 100 call transcripts and flag hot issues Moderate Write a song or compose music Moderate Negotiate contract terms with a long-standing client over a Zoom call Low Troubleshoot a noisy car engine in the shop Low Facilitate an in-person brainstorming session for a fresh ad concept Low History Says Disruption Arrives in Waves—Not Overnight If we look to history, we find that technological disruption tends to diffuse through the labor market over a period of years. Indeed, the U.S. job market actually changed more slowly from 1990-2017 than in any earlier period, despite the arrival of computers and the internet. For career planning, that means AI shock is unlikely to hit all at once like a meteor; instead, watch for gradual but compounding shifts. Workers who track such early indicators can pivot before the crest of the wave, much like typists who re-skilled into desktop-publishing roles during the early days of the personal computer. We are already seeing some strong signals: sharp declines in retail jobs, stalled growth in low-paid services, rapid STEM hiring, and shrinking middle-wage employment—all of which might indicate the pace has begun to accelerate. Related Stories Profiting from Inflation: Strategies and Tips for Investors Understanding Okun's Law: How GDP Growth Affects Unemployment Where AI Augments Rather Than Replaces: A Middle-Class Reboot? Economists argue that AI’s true promise lies in “task lifting”—the idea that software can shoulder the rote parts of complex jobs, allowing mid-skill workers to perform higher-value tasks once reserved for elite professionals. For example, nurses using diagnostic chatbots to interpret scans or auto technicians leveraging vision models for instant fault detection. Complementary design, however, is a choice, not a given. Researchers model three possible scenarios: no-AI, unbounded-AI with little job loss, and a “some-AI” world in which employment ultimately falls nearly 25% if firms deploy the tech purely as a labor-saving device. The policy implications are clear: incentives such as skills-training subsidies and AI co-design grants can push firms toward augmentation scenarios that expand, rather than shrink, the middle tier of the labor market. The Bottom Line AI does not have to be a monolithic job killer; it can be a task-reallocation engine. Your individual vulnerability hinges on how many of your daily tasks are already “AI-ready” and whether employers deploy the technology to substitute or to complement. Audit your work, cultivate a wider task portfolio, and seek firms that invest in human-AI collaboration and you’ll be riding the AI wave rather than waiting to see whether it crashes on your career. Article Sources Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy. Goldman Sachs. "Generative AI could raise global GDP by 7%." Axios. "Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath." NBER. "Artificial Intelligence and the Labor Market." OECD. "OECD Employment Outlook 2023: Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market." NBER. "Technological Disruption in the Labor Market." NBER. "Artificial Intelligence and Technological Unemployment." Retail Insider. "Payroll employment declining in retail and hospitality sectors." British Retail Council. "Quarter of a million retail jobs lost in five years." NBER. "Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs." Advertiser Disclosure × The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. Popular Accounts from Our Partners Read more Economy Economics Macroeconomics Partner Links Advertiser Disclosure × The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. 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