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A public guide to AI and work

See what AI is actually doing to your occupation and your community.

Whether you are hearing about AI for the first time or already wondering about your own job, this guide takes you from the basics to the data for your occupation and community.

Learn more
Search a career or a place
See how much of the work in your occupation overlaps with what AI does today.

How AI is changing everything

A national snapshot of AI and work.
See all indicators in National Pulse
Businesses using AI
—
of US businesses report using AI in their business functions in the last two weeks
Data updated: —How we measure →
Automated or augmented
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When people use AI for work, is it doing the task or helping a person do it?
Data updated: —How we measure →
Layoffs citing AI
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Announced job cuts this year that name AI as a reason, out of — cuts in all.
Data updated: —How we measure →
Entry-level foothold
How far recent graduates (22–27) sit from every worker in the unemployment rate — the entry-level foothold, measured quarterly.
Data updated: —How we measure →
Sources: Census Business Trends and Outlook Survey, Anthropic Economic Index, Challenger Gray & Christmas, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's College Labor Market Indicators. Every value on this page is fetched live from the site's public API and shown only where it is measured — where a national series does not exist yet, we say so instead of substituting one.
About 12 minutes

An AI Primer

Come up to speed quickly on AI, how it's shaping the future of work, and what's going to happen next?

Already know this? Go to the worker’s guide or the data.
  1. 1
    What is AI? What isn't AI?
    5 min
    The term "AI" is overused and can mean a lot of things. Here's how we define it.
  2. 2
    How AI changes work
    5 min
    Why tasks change before jobs do, and the difference between automation and assistance.
  3. 3
    What's the future of work going to look like in the next 5 to 10 years?
    2 min
    The measured trends, and what they do — and do not — support saying about the years ahead.

Questions people ask first

Short, direct answers, each with a link to the evidence behind it.

Is AI taking jobs right now?

So far the clearest AI signal is in how work is done, not in national job counts. Through August 2026, employers announced 116,175 job cuts naming AI as a reason — about 22% of the 529,914 cuts announced all year. That is real, but it is a slice of announced cuts, not economy-wide job loss, and a formal impact estimate is still being built. We publish what is measured, not a scare number.

See the evidence

Is my job at risk?

Exposure is not loss. As of the June 2026 release, 34.6% of measured US employment is in the most AI-exposed quarter of occupations — that means AI already does part of the kind of work those jobs contain, not that those jobs are disappearing. To read your own result, look up your occupation and start with the observed-use number, not the theoretical ceiling.

Look up your occupation

How fast will this happen?

Adoption is rising but uneven: 23.8% of US businesses reported using AI in their business functions in the survey wave of September 6, 2026, up from 17.3% in November 2025 under the current survey wording. Different industries and places are moving at very different speeds, so no single timetable exists. The Scenario Lab (coming soon) will let you test what faster or slower adoption would mean — as what-if exercises, never forecasts.

See adoption data

What can I do about it?

Three practical moves: read the worker’s guide below, watch the early warning signals that tend to move first (layoffs citing AI, entry-level hiring in exposed industries), and base decisions on your own occupation and community data rather than national headlines. Skills, training and support options are gathered with sources at the end of the guide.

Open the worker’s guide

Four terms worth knowing

Generative AI
Software that produces text, images, or code from plain-language instructions — the chatbots and assistants now built into many workplaces.
Task vs. job
A job is a bundle of tasks. AI usually takes over or speeds up individual tasks first; whole jobs change only when most of their tasks do.
Automation vs. augmentation
Automation: AI does the work instead of a person. Augmentation: AI helps a person do the work. Both appear in the data, and they have different consequences.
Exposure
How much of an occupation's work overlaps with what AI can already do. Exposure measures overlap — it is not a prediction that the job disappears.
Open the full glossary
The worker's guide

Is my job affected? Five steps to a clearer answer

1
Find your occupation
Search by job title to find the closest official occupation category — for example, “paralegal” maps to Paralegals and Legal Assistants.
Search occupations
2
Read exposure the right way
Observed use tells you what AI already does in jobs like yours; theoretical potential tells you what it could do. Neither is a layoff date — read them as overlap, not destiny.
How to read results
3
Check your local job market
Look up your metro or ZIP to see how exposed local jobs are and how much stress the local market is under right now — measured conditions, independent of any assumption about AI.
Look up my area
4
Know the early warning signals
Layoffs citing AI, entry-level hiring in exposed industries, and postings trends tend to move before wider changes do. Check them monthly against your own occupation and area.
See warning signals
5
Decide what to do next
Skills, training and support options — gathered with their sources — so the next move is informed by data, not headlines.
See resources