AI Disruption Is Coming for These 7 Jobs, Microsoft Says

Workers are increasingly wondering how much artificial intelligence will change their jobs. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

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Creative Destruction. Hi everyone. Some of the largest and most profitable technology companies, including Microsoft and Meta , have conducted layoffs this year as they look to reshape their workforces in the age of artificial intelligence.

Under this uncertainty, employees are increasingly wondering how much AI will disrupt their job roles. If their daily life revolves around knowledge tasks, the answer is dramatically.

Last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tried to explain the paradox of the company’s layoffs amid financial success that generates tens of billions of net profit a quarter. “I want to speak to what’s been weighing heavily on me, and what I know many of you are thinking about: the recent job eliminations. These decisions are among the most difficult we have to make,” he wrote in a memo to Microsoft employees.

“By every objective measure, Microsoft is thriving—our market performance, strategic positioning, and growth all point up and to the right,” he added. “Yet, at the same time, we’ve undergone layoffs.”

The executive said AI is a major platform shift that will transform products and business models, requiring companies like Microsoft to undergo the process of constantly “unlearning” and “learning” to meet evolving customer requirements. “Getting both the product and platform right for the AI wave is our North Star!” Nadella said.

He is implying AI will also require job role disruption, leading to layoffs and changing responsibilities. This all comes as AI innovation has been advancing rapidly this year. The latest reasoning AI models are becoming more powerful at solving more problems and automating tasks.

This month, Microsoft Research published a paper with an in-depth analysis on which job types will be most affected by AI. The researchers noted nearly 40% of Americans are already using generative AI, and the adoption of the technology is spreading faster than the early years of the personal computer and the internet.

The paper’s authors then calculated how effectively the technology can be used to complete large portions of a job role’s tasks. “We find the highest AI applicability scores for knowledge work occupation groups such as computer and mathematical, office and administrative support, as well as occupations such as sales whose work activities involve providing and communicating information,” the paper said.

According to Microsoft Research, the jobs most at risk in order are interpreters and translators, historians, passenger attendants [travel customer service], sales representatives, writers, customer service representatives, and machine tool programmers. The occupations least at risk include phlebotomists [workers who draw blood from patients], nursing assistants, hazardous material removal workers, painters, and embalmers.

Even the areas that require physical labor may get disrupted if improving AI models lead to large advances in robotics where humanoid robots become commonplace in the coming years.

The Microsoft researchers said their analysis doesn’t mean AI will automatically lead to job losses and are hesitant to make such predictions because history often shows the impact of new technologies is difficult to forecast. But it seems logical that AI will lead to overall job cuts in some fields like translation or customer service.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently gave blunt and direct advice to workers worried about AI. “Everybody is going to be augmented by AI,” he said on the All-In podcast. “Everybody’s jobs will be different as a result of AI. Some jobs will be obsolete, but many jobs will be created. The one thing we know for certain is that if you’re not using AI, you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.”

Recognizing that AI disruption is inevitable and embracing it sounds like the prudent and smart plan.

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Write to Tae Kim at tae.kim@barrons.com or follow him on X at @firstadopter.