The biggest impact of generative AI will be in banking and technology, the report said

A new generation of artificial intelligence is poised to turn old assumptions about technology on their heads.

For years, people who worked in warehouses or fast-food restaurants feared that automation could eliminate their jobs. But new research suggests that generative AI – the kind used in chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT – will have the biggest impact on white-collar workers in high-paying jobs in sectors like banking and technology.

a report published on Thursday by the Burning Glass Institutea non-profit research center, and SHRM, formerly the Society for Human Resource Management, does not claim that the technology will wipe out large numbers of jobs. But it makes clear that workers need to better prepare for a future where AI could play a major role in many workplaces that have thus far remained largely untouched by technological disruption.

For people in tech, this means potentially building their AI replacements.

“There's no question that the workers who will be most affected are the ones with college degrees, and those are the people who always thought they were safe,” said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute.

For hundreds of companies, the researchers estimate the share of payroll spending going to workers in the 200 occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI. Many of these jobs are held by affluent university graduates, including business analysts, marketing managers and software developers. , database administrators, project managers and lawyers.

Companies in the financial sector, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, have some of the highest percentages of their payrolls likely to be disrupted by generative AI. Not far behind are tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta.

Letting AI do human work could yield major savings for those companies. The research estimates that banks and some technology companies spend 60 to 80 percent of their payroll costs, or more, on workers in occupations most likely to be affected by the new technology.

The report shows that the retail, restaurant and transportation sectors are the least likely to be affected by generative AI. Companies like Walmart, McDonald's and Delta Air Lines typically employ workers without college degrees to perform tasks such as helping customers, stocking shelves, cooking food and handling luggage. They spend less than 20 percent of their wages on workers in occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI

The report does not predict potential job losses due to generative AI. That will be up to employers, the report said, and whether they want to hoard the savings from AI automation or use that money to invest and grow, bringing on more workers. Most experts expect that AI will mainly change jobs rather than eliminate them in the coming years – although that could change if the technology improves significantly.

The report highlights the need for more training to prepare employees to adapt to rapidly emerging technology, said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO of SHRM.

“Companies and governments will have to invest seriously to get ahead of this,” he said.

The report is the latest paper in a growing field attempting to predict the impact of generative AI on the economy and the workplace. Other studies predict a surge in economic growth and productivity, automating activities equivalent to millions of jobs, and time savings of up to 50 percent on routine office and coding tasks.

In its research, the Burning Glass Institute has begun estimating exposure to generative AI by occupation in a highly cited area academic article which was published last year. It then added its own data sets – including job vacancies, salary information, government statistics and company information – for the company-by-company calculations. The SHRM report contains a ranking of selected companies. The Burning Glass Institute made the percentage estimates of wage expenditure per company for The New York Times.

Manav Raj, co-author of the academic paper relied on by the Burning Glass Institute, said the new research appeared to be a credible attempt to parse company-level data. But at this stage, he said, all research is educated guesses.

“The many papers out there generally conclude that this wave of AI has the potential to have a very large impact,” said Mr. Raj, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “But it will take some time to figure out what that effect really looks like.”