The fear that AI is out for our jobs — particularly easily automatable or augmentable roles — is strong and understandable. But new data from PwC is trying to shift the conversation from replacement to transformation amid such uncertainty.
The 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer says that AI innovation gives organizations (and workers) the best of every world: increased productivity, higher wages and, in some industries, even job growth. But can we really expect AI to create jobs?
What Does The 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer Actually Say?
PwC’s 2025 AI Jobs Barometer findings are based on nearly 1 billion job ads and global company data across six continents. Depending on your disposition, these revelations may or may not come as a surprise.
Jobs Are Growing Across the Board — But At What Cost?
When I first discovered this report, I thought it would tell me that jobs most exposed to AI are still growing fast — contrary to what most people would think. While they aren’t growing quickly compared to jobs less exposed to AI, they are still growing.
In the U.S., jobs most exposed to AI are still growing at a rate of 38%. Less exposed jobs are setting the pace at 66%, but any amount of growth amid such drastic job market change is comforting. This tells us a few different things about how artificial intelligence is impacting the market:
AI Is Augmenting Jobs, Not Necessarily Eliminating Them
While I don’t think we’re at a point where AI is the impetus for impromptu firings, slower growth in AI-exposed industries — even if it’s still technically growth — indicates that organizations are getting by with fewer hires, as AI assistants enable fewer humans to do the work of many.
Comfortingly, the barometer saw no signs of sharp declines in job numbers, and even suggests that “AI has the potential to create more jobs than it displaces if it is used to pioneer new forms of economic activity.” And, that “companies are indeed using AI to help people create more value rather than simply reduce headcount.”
While AI-driven productivity can reduce the need for headcount growth, this shift doesn’t mean opportunity disappears. Instead, it morphs, creating new roles and higher expectations for human contribution. In fact, the demand for AI professionals far outpaces supply. According to Keller Executive Search, more than 66,000 job postings in 2024 asked for generative AI skills, leading to new opportunities focused on improving AI models or using them to create content.
Whether that’s good news or not-so-good depends on your outlook, but the barometer tries to deliver greater solace reporting on such a tough topic by exploring ways that AI is making work more accessible, too:
“AI is helping to democratise opportunity for people who lack the time or resources to obtain formal degrees,” with AI-exposed roles requiring degrees less often than they did in 2019.
AI’s Impact Is Still Uneven
Adoption rates still vary widely by industry and country. In some sectors, AI integration is still ramping up, slowing new hiring even as productivity increases.
Job growth rate data initially pulled me into PwC’s work here, but other discoveries turned out to be much more intriguing:
AI-Exposed Industries Are More Productive
In industries highly exposed to AI (e.g., financial services, SaaS), productivity growth nearly quadrupled, rising from 7% (2018‑2022) to 27% (2018‑2024). Sectors with low AI exposure saw it dip slightly from 10% to 9%. These high‑exposure industries also see three times faster revenue‑per‑employee growth (27%) compared to less exposed ones (9%).
Most people likely expected productivity to be on the upswing, but a 20% improvement? That’s not incremental growth, but a shift in how AI-exposed industries are creating value through:
- Routine task automation.
- AI-assisted decision-making.
- Faster iteration, personalization and testing.
- Smarter resource allocation.
AI-Skilled Employees Are Earning Wage Premiums
Roles requiring AI skills averaged a 56% wage premium in 2024, up from 25% in 2023. Wages in more AI‑exposed industries also rose twice as fast as those in less exposed ones.
In the early AI days, wage premiums seemed to mostly reflect scarcity of talent, whereas today, they reflect the value AI skillsets can bring to the table, such as efficiency and innovation gains. Being able to command more money is nice on paper — but only for those who already have an AI skillset, or the time and resources to acquire one. For everyone else, AI’s impact on the job market may still incite more gloom than glory.
Where Do Marketers Fall Amid All of This?
For the sake of this blog, let’s say that marketers and adjacent roles fall under “Business and Administration Professionals.” In PwC’s U.S. distinction of the barometer, jobs in this discipline are among the most exposed to AI and are highly augmentable.
When Brafton conducted its AI In Marketing survey, a vast majority (79.5%) of respondents said their company was already using AI tools in their marketing processes. Some time on now, it wouldn’t surprise me if that figure was higher.
So, what should marketers and other business professionals focus on?
Upskilling and Reskilling Is More Important Than Ever
With AI-exposed roles changing 66% faster than those less-exposed, continuous learning and upskilling have never been more important. While the most dedicated folks will seek learning opportunities on their own, employers steadfast in implementing AI have a responsibility to teach, train and create growth avenues for employees they expect to interact with AI tools.
In LinkedIn’s Skills on the Rise 2025, ‘AI literacy’ is in high demand as the fastest-growing skill across industries, and the second fastest-growing skill in marketing.
If you’re among the 79.5% of people whose companies are using AI, ask about available courses or training opportunities that allow you to get more comfortable with AI and begin using it with minimal hiccups or headaches. At the very least, it will make you more valuable, according to PwC.
The Future Is… Complicated
Before I properly dove into PwC’s report, the original intent behind this blog was to offer comfort amid the job market’s remodeling. But in the end, I’m left with more questions than when I began:
- Will jobs highly exposed to AI continue growing slowly, or will we eventually reach a saturation point?
- How much of AI upskilling or reskilling is our responsibility vs. our employers’?
- Do we have enough affordable, accessible and effective resources to train people on in-demand AI skills?
These conversations always seem to return to the same unknown place, where knowing anything for certain is impossible in the AI space.
For now, though, learning that job growth isn’t as stunted as many thought it might be is comforting, and may even provide some vigor and motivation to develop our skills, learn new things and explore the reality of the transforming job market and what it means for our future.
