AI Job Impact Report — What Jobs Will AI Replace?

Why this matters:

This table shows where AI's economic impact will be largest—not necessarily the highest-risk jobs, but the ones where disruption affects the most dollars in the economy.

Wage exposure = Workers × Average Salary × AI Risk %. High-wage categories with millions of workers create massive economic ripple effects. Even moderate AI disruption (13-50% risk) in these sectors means billions in wage pressure, workforce restructuring, and fundamental changes to how industries operate.

Why these jobs are at risk:

High-skill knowledge sectors top the automation rankings. These roles involve tasks AI excels at:

• Pattern analysis & data modeling
• Report writing & documentation
• Forecasting & planning
• Coding & content generation

These fields won't disappear—but workflows will be fundamentally rebuilt around AI.

Why this matters:

Most "high-risk job" lists focus on percentage risk—but that misses the real story. A niche profession with 50% automation risk affects a tiny fraction of society.

The true economic and social disruption happens where large numbers of people work in moderately or highly exposed roles.

These categories combine:

• High task disruption and automation pressure
• Large national workforce sizes
• Billions or trillions in wage exposure
• Daily work that AI can meaningfully change

This is where AI transformation will be felt the most by the public, affecting millions of families, households, and communities.

What this means:

These categories represent 142.8 million workers—the majority of the American workforce. AI won't eliminate most of these jobs, but it will:

• Reshape workflows
• Reduce repetitive tasks
• Demand new skills
• Change staffing ratios
• Create career bifurcation (AI users vs. non-users)
• Shift wage dynamics over time

For workers, these are the roles where learning to use AI is not optional—it's the difference between stagnation and advancement.

The best of both worlds:

High salaries combined with low AI risk. These professions offer both economic security and job security in the AI era. Physicians earn $230K+ while only 7% of their tasks face automation risk. Engineering and nursing roles combine strong wages with hands-on human judgment that AI cannot replace.

Why this matters:

This table answers the actual question job-seekers, journalists, and policymakers care about: "Where are the largest concentrations of AI-safe jobs today?"

These are the categories where:

• There is already huge demand
• AI disruption is minimal
• Real human workers will be needed for decades
• People can pivot into stable, future-proof work at scale

Top job categories with the highest automation-only percentages:

Even in the most automatable sectors (e.g., Finance, Social Science, Banking), replacement is partial. Humans remain essential for oversight, legal compliance, contextual judgment, and stakeholder relationships. These percentages represent tasks AI can do independently—not entire job elimination.

The biggest productivity boosts — "AI as your co-pilot":

This is the heart of the AI labor story: Most jobs won't be replaced—most jobs will get a second brain.

Fields like Education, Software, Media, Retail, and Industrial Engineering will see massive productivity gains. AI enhances lesson planning, accelerates coding, streamlines content creation, and optimizes workflows—without eliminating the human expert.

Human-only tasks with >85% non-automatable work:

This dataset shows that care, medical, construction, repair, and physical work remain profoundly human. These roles involve:

• Complex motor skills in unpredictable environments
• Real-world risk assessment & split-second decisions
• Trust & interpersonal relationships
• Empathy & emotional intelligence
• Hands-on judgment under pressure

This is where humans have a "moat." AI cannot cross these boundaries.