Dive Brief:
- AI has not led to widespread job losses in the U.S. despite fears of displacement among 43% of employees, according to a December Forrester report. The analyst firm expects AI to replace 6% of U.S. jobs in the next four years.
- Forrester conceded that generative and agentic AI will likely eliminate 10.4 million jobs through 2030, more than the Great Recession’s 8.7 million. A significant number of employers will cite AI transformation for layoffs that stem from financial pretexts.
- “We may not be heading for an imminent AI job apocalypse, but how organizations handle AI today will define more than just their future success,” J. P. Gownder, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, said in a Tuesday blog accompanying the report. “To navigate the complexity around the human and AI era, leaders must prioritize governance and invest in their people — treating AI not as a replacement for human talent but as a tool to enhance it.”
Dive Insight:
The Forrester report echoes an analyst and tech executive maxim: AI will augment rather than replace jobs. The firm makes the case by citing the 2.2% U.S. labor productivity rate since the launch of ChatGPT, which is only a marginal improvement from the previous rate of 1.8%.
“For AI to replace human talent at scale, the labor productivity rate would have to accelerate — that is, fewer people, aided by capital investments in AI, would be knocking per-person productivity out of the park,” the report authors wrote.
The AI-related job loss estimates have grown more stark since Forrester’s 2023 forecast. The firm in 2023 predicted that generative AI would lead to 2.4 million U.S. jobs lost by 2030; the number rose to 5.17 million in Forrester’s latest report.
Much has changed in the world of AI since 2023.
“Agentic — or, at the moment, more agent-ish — AI has emerged, allowing organizations to create applications that are more accurate and that solve specific problems,” the authors said in the recent report. “We’ve also seen widespread investments in genAI, with successes and failures that have taught the market how to get better results.”
AI's impact on channel partner labor depends on the company’s size and vertical.
Small channel partners are using AI to spin up previously non-existent functions in administration and marketing. These companies are arming their employees with AI to help them close deals faster.
“Our goal is that every single employee is certified in AI and that every single one of them ultimately will have their own AI assistant to help them do their job better, faster, stronger,” ARG President James Larsen told Channel Dive last year.
Mom-and-pop managed service providers have automated tier one and two support, using AI to compensate for a scant payroll. They are now hiring for more sophisticated senior roles or angling their young employees for promotion. In the meantime, MSP staff of all seniority levels are benefiting from automated ticketing systems that proactively handle routine client tasks.
“AI is rewriting the economics of service delivery at the exact time IT service providers are rethinking how they operate,” Shield Technology Partners CEO Jim Siders said in December.
Global consultancies may no longer require junior fellows to build slide decks and draft reports if generative AI can do the job, calling into question the future of entry-level employees.
In the managed security service provider space, where talent is scarce, providers may no longer be shelling out six figures for junior cybersecurity engineers if AI platforms can do the job better.
“The whole space has recognized that they're not going to put a college graduate in the security operations center anymore,” 360 SOC CEO Chris Ichelson told Channel Dive last year.
Correction: This story has been updated to indicate the Forrester report was published in December.
