aiin perspective

Economy & work

New jobs, business growth and workforce transitions.

Research reviewed 13 September 2026

What are those roles?

Build and deployAI engineers; forward-deployed engineers and product managers
Prepare and inspectData annotators; AI forensic analysts
Lead adoptionHeads of AI

Examples named in LinkedIn’s report; opportunities span model development, data work and implementation.

Employment is expanding at AI companies.

Change over one year · LinkedIn’s January 2026 report

Foundation-model companies92%
AI hardware25%
Computer vision & robotics20%
AI tools & platforms18%
Big Tech8%
AI applications for specific industries6%

100+ manually classified firms, including startups and Big Tech. A selected company sample, not growth across the entire labour market.

AI attracted 61% of global venture capital.

2025 · OECD analysis of Preqin deals

$258.7B of $427.1B; rounded share. Funding is not revenue, profit or job creation.

Newly funded AI companies

3,499

Worldwide in 2025, according to Stanford’s AI Index.

U.S.1,953
U.K.172
China161

Selected countries. Funded companies are not newly incorporated firms or individual founders. Quid data; definitions differ from OECD/Preqin.

AI venture capital over time

Selected years · USD billions

2021257
2023124
2025259

OECD / Preqin. Selected published years, without interpolation.

Funding pays for the capacity to build businesses; employment and productivity tell us more about what follows. See AI-company hiring →   See business outcomes →

Customer support: more issues resolved.

Issues per hour · comparison without AI = 100

Without AI100
With AI115

15% higher productivity across 5,172 agents at one firm.

Field study published in 2025; earlier data. Estimated effect in this setting, not a universal gain.

Coding assistance: more completed tasks.

Completed tasks · without AI = 100

Without AI100
With AI126

26% more completed tasks across three randomized field experiments with 4,867 developers.

Microsoft, Accenture and a Fortune 100 firm; 2025 paper. Pooled estimate 26.08%, standard error 10.3 percentage points. Each trial was noisy.

These studies measured output on specific tasks. They do not show that every worker, model or workflow becomes more productive.

Why have some coding studies found a slowdown?

Experienced developers: tasks took longer.

Time per task · comparison without AI = 100

Without AI100
With AI119

19% more time in a trial with 16 developers and 246 tasks.

Early-2025 tools; reported interval +2% to +39%. This is a historical result, not a current coding-agent benchmark.

The smaller METR trial used experienced open-source developers working in familiar repositories. The larger experiments tested coding-assistant access in companies. Different tasks, tools and participants can produce different results.

METR’s February 2026 follow-up suggests improvement, but cannot establish a reliable current estimate.

Small businesses report benefits.

Share of GenAI-using SMEs reporting each benefit

Better employee performance65%
More ability to scale35%
Higher revenue26%

OECD survey of 5,000+ SMEs in seven countries. The 26% is the share reporting higher revenue, not a 26% revenue increase. Self-reports do not establish causation.

What could this add to the economy?

Projected increase in U.S. GDP level from GenAI

20351.5%
2055 · nearly3.0%
20753.7%

Faster work can increase output from the same resources. Penn Wharton models how that could accumulate.

Future GDP levels relative to a baseline without the modelled GenAI contribution. These are not annual growth rates or gains already realized; adoption and cost-saving assumptions matter.

Does every business benefit?

A randomized trial of an AI business adviser in Kenya did not establish an average revenue or profit benefit. Effects differed by entrepreneurs’ starting performance. Access to a tool is only one part of making it useful.

Tasks may change without an entire job disappearing.

25%

of employment has some GenAI exposure.

Global employment

1 person = 1% of employment. ILO’s 2025 model measures potential task exposure, not jobs lost; 3.3% globally is in the highest category, within the 25%.

Early-career hiring is a concern.

19% gap

Employment for 22–25-year-olds in AI-exposed U.S. occupations fell behind less-exposed peers, mainly through weaker hiring.

Stanford ADP study, revised August 2026. Observational, not proof AI caused the gap; education controls weaken some patterns.

What do employers forecast?

+170Mroles created
−92Mroles lost
+78Mnet

WEF forecast, 2025–2030. Includes all major economic trends, not AI alone. These are not jobs already created.

These studies do not establish a global net-jobs figure caused by AI. ILO ↗ WEF ↗

Involve workers in the redesign

Ask which tasks they want help with and where human judgment should remain. Stanford’s WorkBank research documents preferences; OECD surveys associate consultation and training with better reported outcomes.

Pay for training and transitions

Provide training time, routes into new roles and support for affected workers. Track junior hiring alongside productivity. These are recommendations, not guaranteed fixes.

Test the actual task

Measure time, accuracy and rework before expanding. Harvard’s consulting research found AI helped on some tasks and reduced correctness on a task beyond its capabilities.

Expert perspectives

Paraphrased views, not quotations or a claim of consensus.

Edward McFowland III Harvard Business School

Test AI on the organization’s own tasks before assuming it will help.

How the evidence was selected

Primary university studies, government and intergovernmental reports, ethical-AI research and company disclosures published from September 2021–September 2026. This is a curated guide, not an exhaustive systematic review. Older underlying data are labelled.

Estimates, forecasts, surveys and observed results are kept distinct. Company claims are identified as disclosures. Charts are redrawn from cited data, with rounded values and calculated shares labelled; no missing years are interpolated.

Industry comparisons show scope and date because electricity, onsite water and supply-chain footprints are different measures. Findings do not automatically generalize beyond the studied people, products or settings.

Sources59 sources

Each “Notes” button gives the finding, scope and limits.

Download source ledger ↗
59 sources
2025 · Modelled estimate & scenarios

Energy and AI ↗

International Energy Agency

2025 · Peer-reviewed field study

Generative AI at Work ↗

Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond · Quarterly Journal of Economics

Research notes