7. AI and the Future of Work

What does AI actually do to work — and what should we do about it?This chapter argues that the question has been badly framed for decades. The “robots taking jobs” narrative obscures a more precise and more useful truth: AI automates tasks, not jobs, and the difference matters enormously for how individuals, organisations, and policymakers respond. Drawing on labour market data, historical analogy, and emerging workplace evidence, the Chapter constructs a layered picture of a transition already underway, one where only 9% of jobs are fully automatable, but virtually every job is being touched.Five lessons from past technological transitions anchor the analysis: fear and hype are temporary; adaptation determines who benefits; companies that train workers outperform those that simply cut them. Against this backdrop, the chapter maps three categories of skills: those AI is absorbing, those needed to work alongside it today, and those that make humans irreplaceable tomorrow. It then traces AI's four-channel impact on the labour market: evolution of existing roles, creation of entirely new ones, redistribution across geographies and demographics, and selective displacement concentrated among older and lower-mobility workers. The future of work will be shaped by decisions made at every level of society.