Q&A of the Day – What are the Most & Least Impacted Jobs By AI?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station page in the iHeart app.
Today’s entry: Submitted via Talkback: I'm a cloud engineer and for 2 years, it's been very hard to find continuous work. AI is amazing and I think it's eating up the jobs. And I was thinking, do I need to get a job where AI can't take it, and I got stuck on the side of the road and to go 17 miles in my car with a tow truck was over $300. Is a towing business a good route to go?
Bottom Line: Yes, it likely is. I’m sorry to hear about the inconsistent work and car trouble, however your anecdote is on point in multiple ways as we’re now at the point where AI has impacted most industries and has begun meaningfully impacting many jobs – including replacing humans with machine learning.
In recent years, reports have emerged commonly showing about half of all jobs (or more) could be eliminated through AI. According to MIT, by late 2025 nearly 12% of all U.S. jobs could be completely eliminated due to AI’s capabilities. With that said, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ Job Cut Report, while many jobs have been impacted through AI integration, only 79,449 jobs (or a fraction of 1%) are known to have been completely eliminated by AI thus far. So, while many wonder whether the shoe is about to drop, up until now employers have been reluctant to replace employees with AI completely.
Given the slow job growth over the past year, the situation explained in today’s note has been more common – one-time temporary positions that aren’t available and/or growth by companies occurring through use of AI over the expansion of their workforce. If you search for information on the most and least AI-impacted jobs, you’ll find no shortage of lists that exist. However, in my view, the most instructive research that exists is what’s already happened and what’s currently possible.
The most specific information currently available comes from Microsoft’s Bing Copilot. Microsoft’s AI tool uses anonymized information from companies that use Microsoft’s systems (which is most companies). When breaking down the most impacted professions with job loss potential here’s the top ten in order with the percentage of the jobs AI can already completely replicate and also the percentage of jobs that have been negatively impacted by AI (either through job loss or slower hiring):
- Sales Representatives of Services: 90% (45%)
- Customer Service Representatives: 90% (41%)
- Telemarketers: 89% (40%)
- Interpreters and Translators: 88% (49%)
- Computer Programmers: 87% (42%)
- Political Scientists: 87% (39%)
- Historians: 85% (46%)
- Writers and Authors: 84% (45%)
- Broadcast Announcers and Radio Disc Jockeys: 84% (41%)
- Mathematicians: 74% (39%)
The common theme with the most impacted jobs is that they’re primarily knowledge and communications based which are the most easily AI replicated tasks. Now it’s worth noting that just because AI might be able to replicate most of the work in most of those positions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. For example, my employer iHeart, has taken the position of being “Guaranteed Human”. Our company’s research has shown that in the age of AI there is a greater desire for human connection than ever before – so the company will not replace broadcasters with AI. That’s likely a calculation many other employers in related fields will opt for as well – at least in public facing positions like customer service and sales. As for the least impacted jobs...
- Dredge Operators
- Bridge and Lock Tenders
- Water Treatment Plant and System Operators
- Roofers
- Paving Equipment Operators
- Nursing Assistants / Orderlies
- Phlebotomists
- Waste Removal
- Builders/Contractors
- Cleaners / Janitors
AI isn’t currently able to completely replicate any of the work in any of those professions currently, and you’ll notice a theme here too. These are the jobs of doers where there’s a significant physical component in play. And on that note, it takes us to today’s specific example of a tow truck operator. Technically, a component of the job, driving the tow truck, can currently be replicated by self-driving AI. However, the physical aspect of the tow is something AI isn’t able to currently do. As a result, there is no known negative AI impact on the towing industry and long-term potential impacts (decade plus).
In other words, those who use their hands to do their job likely have the safest jobs in the AI-age for the foreseeable. I’m still a believer than in time AI will create more jobs than it will eliminate, but like every technological disruption that creates new opportunities, there will be many jobs and likely whole industries that will cease to exist on the way there.