AI is rapidly scaling in the workforce and creating fears of an employment crisis, as workers and people entering the workforce try to figure out if their career is on the chopping block.
That quick pace is backed by emerging data. As a result, people are trying to find “AI-proof” jobs that can guarantee job security as companies around the world choose to automate tasks instead of hiring new workers.
Although no study can definitively say which occupations are 100% AI-proof and which are doomed to automation, a recent Microsoft study and its findings can shed a light on the matter.
A Microsoft study published last month measured how AI can productively apply to the common tasks of different jobs.
Microsoft researchers analyzed more than 200 thousand anonymized conversations from Bing Copilot, the company’s search engine chatbot, from January 2024 through September 2024 to see “what tasks users perform with a mainstream, publicly available, free-to-use generative AI chatbot,” the study says.
The study then developed “AI applicability scores” for these jobs, a number that represents the combination of which work activities people sought the most AI assistance for plus how successful these tasks were and their scope of impact.
There are caveats
Although the study shows which occupations AI can automate best, and those which it can’t do as well, Microsoft says that doesn’t necessarily mean that those jobs will be eliminated.
The AI applicability score highlights “where AI might change how work is done, not take away or replace jobs,” Microsoft representatives told Gizmodo earlier this month.
“Our research shows that AI supports many tasks, particularly those involving research, writing, and communication, but does not indicate it can fully perform any single occupation,” Microsoft said.
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