AI has changed the labor market… but that doesn’t mean it has eliminated jobs completely.

From the desk of Miles Everson:

Happy Friday!

For those of you who may not know, guerrilla marketing is an out-of-the-box strategy that empowers marketers to use unconventional tactics when interacting with their target audience.

I’m a fan of this strategy because it shows just how impactful such campaigns can be when executed properly and creatively.

For today, I’ll talk about a guerrilla marketing campaign that helped an established brand generate visibility in a different market.

Continue reading below.

AI was considered a pipe dream for many decades. It was a theoretical project for scientists and a plot device for fiction writers to play with.

Then, ChatGPT happened.

Launched in late 2022, OpenAI ’s popular chatbot kickstarted today’s AI boom. Since then, the development of generative AI tools have proceeded at a breakneck pace.

With its power to automate routine tasks, analyze vast amounts of data in seconds, and ability to generate content in just a few seconds, the hype surrounding AI has reached a feverish pitch.

That hype has found itself in the jobs market because of AI’s promise to drastically increase productivity and enable companies to do more with less humans on the payroll.

Many industry voices have warned about AI’s potential to eliminate a vast number of white collar roles due to automation.

Anthropic, the AI startup behind the popular AI tool Claude, recently released a study about the impact of AI on jobs.

The report reveals roles like, computer programming, customer service, data entry, medical record, marketing, sales, financial and investment analysis, software quality assurance, information security analysis, and computer support specialists are the most exposed roles to AI.

This brings us to this question: Has AI led to an enormous amount of job losses?

According to recent findings , job losses may not be as catastrophic as some have made it out to be.

In a YouGov poll composed of 1,250 U.S.-based workers, it was found that since the launch of ChatGPT, only 3% of workers have attributed AI as the cause of unemployment. Meanwhile, 9% cited AI as a reason for getting a promotion.

According to Jeffrey Dixon, the sociologist who commissioned the survey, it was surprising to find out that “so few of the surveyed workers said they had lost jobs due to AI. ”

These findings are interesting because they go against the mainstream narrative that AI will eliminate a vast swath of jobs. They also show that AI is becoming a factor in job promotions.

In other words, AI hasn’t brought about the millions of job losses that the mainstream media has predicted.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should be complacent.

Since these findings were gathered early on in the AI boom, many of the results that the survey found could still change.

AI could lead to the creation of new roles down the line and it might even lead to a substantial increase in unemployment. However, until those materialize, it’s best to not give in to sensationalist headlines about AI.

As a professional, it’s best to adapt to the changes brought about by AI as best you can. While you may not lose your job to AI, you will definitely lose it to someone who knows how to use AI in better and creative ways.

For leaders, managers, or anyone else in the C-suite, what you should be doing now is looking into ways how AI can meaningfully boost the quality and productivity that your teams are delivering.

This way, you can steer your organizations into adopting AI in a meaningful and useful way.

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