Where do workers stand in AI age?

The debate over artificial intelligence and the future of the job market has often swung between anxiety and excitement. Much of the excitement has come from the promise of a more efficient world where machines can produce code, analyse data and handle routine tasks with remarkable speed. At the same time, there was a growing fear that this very technology could bring about the biggest upheaval in work since the Industrial Revolution. Software engineers, lawyers, analysts and journalists have all heard the warning that machines may soon replace them. Some prominent researchers have even suggested that artificial intelligence could displace up to 80 per cent of software developers by 2025. That anxiety seemed to gain real weight when major technology companies began laying off hundreds of thousands of workers in 2024 and early 2025, making those predictions feel less like speculation and more like an approaching reality. And yet, now in 2026, the sweeping collapse of jobs that many expected has not materialised. Artificial intelligence has not wiped out work on a massive scale. Its impact has instead been uneven and, in many respects, more subtle. What does stand out, however, is that artificial intelligence is making it harder for younger workers to find a foothold in the job market.

The early promise of artificial intelligence helps explain why fears of widespread job losses took hold so quickly. For employers, the appeal was simply too hard to resist. If machines could perform the same tasks as humans, it seemed only natural to question why those roles should continue to be paid for. Companies were quick to see the potential for cutting costs, and before long, some of the largest firms began restructuring and laying off workers. Yet as experience has accumulated, those expectations have begun to look overstated. Tasks that demand judgment, contextual understanding and a sense of responsibility have turned out to be very difficult to automate. A recent report from the MIT NANDA Centre titled "The GenAI Divide" found that despite US$40 billion in global investment, as much as 95 percent of generative AI pilots in the enterprise sector have yet to produce a single dollar of measurable return. For most organisations, the impact on their bottom line has been zero.

One of the clearest disappointments of the artificial intelligence boom has happened in the very sector that gave birth to it. The belief that large language models could replace software developers has proved far less convincing in practice. Sure, artificial intelligence can generate simple programmes in seconds, but the outputs often become difficult to maintain over time. They lack the underlying structure needed for reliable systems, giving rise to what engineers describe as a slop layer. The term refers to code that appears to function at first but becomes difficult for human developers to understand and fix when problems arise. Analysis of 10 billion lines of code by CAS Software estimates that it would take 61 billion workdays to undo the damage caused by AI-assisted development. So in a strange way, artificial intelligence hasn't removed the need for skilled workers. If anything, it has changed the nature of their work. Instead of simply writing code, developers now spend more time reviewing, correcting and maintaining what machines produce.

This evolution is consistent with what we've seen in earlier waves of technological change. For example, the spread of computers didn't eliminate office work. Instead, it just automated the routine tasks which freed people up to focus on more complex and higher value activities. Now artificial intelligence seems to be following a similar path. It lowers the cost of certain mental tasks like drafting text or analysing data, but it doesn't wipe out entire jobs. Most jobs consist of a bundle of tasks, some of which can be automated and others that require human judgment. As long as this balance remains, full automation is going to stay the exception rather than becoming the rule.

That said, it would be misleading to conclude that artificial intelligence poses little threat to employment. The impact of the technology is not evenly distributed, and its most significant effects are hitting the entry level hardest. A lot of professions rely on junior workers to handle routine and repetitive tasks as part of learning the ropes and those are exactly the kinds of tasks AI happens to be really good at. As a result, employers suddenly have less reason to take a chance on inexperienced hires. In fact, because companies believed AI could handle junior-level work, entry-level hiring in the US dropped by nearly 50 per cent between 2023 and 2025. This is effectively cutting off the pipeline of future talent. When fewer juniors are brought in today, there are fewer experienced workers available in the years that follow. Over time, this weakens the entire system through which skills are developed and passed on.

Still, there are good reasons to think the long-term impact of artificial intelligence will end up being more balanced than the most pessimistic predictions suggest. Industries that have gone all in on AI are finally waking up to the fact that they are confronting a critical limitation. Artificial intelligence lacks accountability, a quality that underpins almost every form of human work. There have already been striking examples of what happens when that element is missing. In late 2025, the infamous "anti-gravity incident" occurred when a developer asked Google's anti-gravity AI to clear a project cache. The AI misread instruction and carried out a destructive command, wiping a two-terabyte production drive in seconds without permission. The AI's response was simply "I made a catastrophic error in judgment." But an apology doesn't exactly bring back months of lost work.

So where does this leave the office worker in 2026? AI has not taken over the workforce, and if anything, it has proven that knowledge work is rarely simple or easy to automate. The parts of a job that require genuine judgment, responsibility and oversight remain firmly in human hands. Still, for young people trying to enter a tight job market, the outlook is undeniably tough though maybe not completely hopeless.

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