AI isn't likely to replace humans at work, says report—but 5 occupations may soon feel its impact more

Artificial intelligence is already changing the way some people work, but it's not yet poised to replace the work that humans do, according to a new report from Indeed.

No workplace skills out of more than 2,800 identified by Indeed Hiring Lab were "very likely" to be replaced by generative AI, the report, published on Sept. 25, found. 

A 68.7% majority of skills were "very unlikely" or "unlikely" to be replaced by AI, while 28.5% of skills may "potentially" be replaceable. Indeed's report examined soft skills like communication, leadership and organization, more technical skills including specific coding languages, and hands-on skills such as cooking and administering medication.

"We were able to take all these skills, map them to over a million job postings that we had over the last year or so, and then evaluate: Could gen AI replace a human being in performing this particular job function?" says Svenja Gudell, Indeed's chief economist. "When we did that, the result was actually quite striking because we found that there were really no skills — literally zero — that were very likely to be replaceable."

Indeed used GPT-4o, OpenAI's latest multimodal generative AI model, to evaluate its own ability to perform work skills across three areas: provide theoretical knowledge related to skills, use those skills to solve problems and execute those skills either physically or digitally. 

The model then used that assessment to rate the likelihood of whether generative AI could replace a person to carry out a given skill.

The research indicates that AI is only suited, for now, to serve a support role for workers: While AI has relatively high technical competency, without stronger problem-solving capability and hands-on functionality, it can't compete with human labor.

"Our takeaway was that gen AI, in its current form at least — now that's a pretty important caveat — would be a very advanced digital assistant, and it could certainly make us more productive in some settings," Gudell says. "But it's not replacing the human quite yet."

Indeed's researchers considered 16 occupations in their study and highlighted five jobs that involve the greatest share of skills that have the potential to be replaced by AI. Those lines of work are:

1. Accounting professionals
2. Marketing and advertising specialists
3. Software developers
4. Health care administrative support staff
5. Insurance claims and inspection officers

The technical and often repetitive nature of the skills needed for those roles play into AI's strengths, says Gudell, in addition to the fact that those professions tend to require less physical interaction. 

On the other hand, occupations that demand client or customer exchange, physical presence or less repetitive problem-solving are the least likely to be replaceable, she adds, citing patient-facing health care work such as nursing as examples.

Still, workers shouldn't shy away from certain career paths that are more susceptible to being replaced by AI, according to Gudell. Instead, she explains, people interested in software development, for instance, should learn to use AI tools to increase their productivity and boost their competitiveness in the job market.

"It's really all about using these tools to your maximum advantage when you're searching for a job," Gudell says.

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