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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• New MIT research defines a longer timeline for AI’s job impacts.
• AI capabilities still threaten text-based work.
• Workers may have more time to adapt than previously thought.

Worried AI is coming for your job? New MIT research suggests a slower shift. AI is improving at work tasks, but its impact may take longer to fully reach the workforce. Rather than “crashing waves” that will shock workers, researchers describe a “rising tide” that gives them more time to adapt.

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“AI capabilities are already substantial and poised to expand broadly,” the study said. “Most of the tasks that we study could reach AI success rates of 80%-95% by 2029 (at a minimally sufficient quality level), suggesting potentially substantial labor-market impacts as this tide continues to rise.”

AI-induced job anxiety has become an ever-present reality over the last year as AI agents have gotten more capable (though they come with just as many risks as they do benefits). Even a slightly longer horizon for lasting change could make a huge difference in whether — and how many — workers get the chance to upskill for a very different labor market of the future.

AI will be ‘minimally sufficient’ by 2029

For the study, MIT referred to 3,000 text-based work tasks from the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database, which is used by many companies, including Anthropic, to map AI’s impact on labor. To ensure real-world relevance, researchers focused on tasks where AI could help humans save at least 10% of their time.

The study found that LLMs completed 60% of tasks without humans at a “minimally sufficient” level, as determined by a human manager, and only 26% at “superior quality.” Still, researchers were impressed by what AI could take on. It’s not that AI progress will be less impressive than anticipated, but that progress will manifest over a longer period of time, “such that individual workers are less likely to be blindsided by AI,” they noted. “A rising tide could, however, still be quite disruptive if it happens quickly.”

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The paper noted that text-based work is especially vulnerable to rapidly evolving AI capabilities and could be automated by LLMs at that “minimally sufficient” level by 2029. But they added that consistent, “near-perfect” performance — meaning success rates closer to 100% — could still be years off.

“Widespread automation, particularly in domains with low tolerance for errors, may still be some distance away,” the researchers wrote. 

2029 may not feel very far off for a meaningful uptick in what AI can automate, but given how quickly AI is already evolving, it does mean some extra time for the workforce to adapt.

That said, the paper authors also don’t think the speediest timeline is a guarantee. AI’s evolution could be stymied by limits in compute, which is notoriously expensive to scale, as well as algorithmic and hardware constraints. Maintaining that competitive speed will depend on every component of the AI efficiency machine operating at full tilt.

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MIT noted that because data collection for this study is ongoing, it isn’t complete yet, but will eventually aim to represent over 900 occupations. This sample leans more toward white-collar jobs with slightly lower wage and experience levels ($29 per hour and 1.8 years of work experience, respectively), and that require a bachelor’s degree or less education, as opposed to jobs that require graduate degrees or higher. 

Recent layoffs and future role changes

Another MIT study from December 2025 found that current AI systems could automate nearly 12% of the country’s workforce as it stands today — not just tech-specific jobs like coding, which many see as particularly exposed (entry-level developer jobs are already dwindling). That also isn’t limited to coastal sectors, and covers roles in finance, HR, office administration, and more.

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But whether that comes to fruition or not depends on how and where companies actually adopt AI, which is a whole different factor that puts projections all over the map. For example, in contrast to MIT’s 12%, a January Forrester report estimated 6% of US jobs could be automated — not now, but by 2030.

At the end of February, Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced the company’s decision to lay off nearly half its workforce based on what he said AI tools could handle internally. While there’s no way to verify that’s the case (and not just some savvy stock juicing), it set a tone: Will companies chasing efficiency gains and wanting to appear cutting-edge follow suit with mass layoffs?

There are two camps in this debate. One, occupied by figures like Elon Musk, is driven by the belief that AI can put all humans out of work. In the other, experts think AI will change or augment work (a view supported by findings from Gartner) rather than replace human workers themselves.

Career development expert Keith Spencer said he’s seeing more of the latter: less job replacement and more augmentation and “uneven, role-specific change” that isn’t uniform across the job market. He added that AI is also creating new opportunities in freelance and gig work for some (which AI itself hasn’t been great at thus far).

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“As certain tasks become faster and easier to complete, more work is being broken into smaller, project-based assignments that can be done independently,” Spencer said. “That’s opening the door for workers to take on additional income streams, even as they navigate uncertainty in their primary roles.”

Still, that augmentation has its costs.

“When parts of your job are automated or reduced, it can feel like you’re slowly being made obsolete, even if your role still exists,” he said. “While the long-term trajectory may include both job creation and job displacement, the immediate experience for many workers is that the ground is shifting beneath them, and that’s what’s shaping behavior.”

Where AI isn’t fully replacing human workers, it’s extending the bounds of work itself. A February report from Harvard Business Review found that AI tools in the workplace don’t necessarily save time or reduce work, as so many hoped, but actually intensify it. Workers reported using AI tools on lunch breaks and experimenting with prompts after hours to get ahead on projects.

That doesn’t sound negative, but that creep can have cumulative impacts on workers.

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“Research from cognitive and organizational psychology has shown that restorative breaks are necessary; without them, cognitive performance and attention decline rapidly,” said Tara Behrend, a professor of labor relations at Michigan State University. “This could be extremely dangerous depending on the kind of work being done.”

Mal Vivek, CEO at digital strategy company Zeb, thinks recent layoffs from Meta and Oracle are less about AI itself and more a response to a composite picture of the economy.

“Many of these layoffs were more driven by AI applying market pressure rather than true enterprise AI adoption and automation driving the jobs away,” she told ZDNET. “The jobs eliminated were jobs the company always believed it could live without — with or without AI.”

Still, Vivek agreed that the layoffs are a growing trend and can be based on AI’s capabilities.

“We are seeing that AI is on average as good or better at many intellectual tasks, and the efficiency gains from it are just too promising for companies to ignore — especially when their competitors are capitalizing,” she said, speaking from experience at her own company.

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Spencer isn’t seeing a decline in available jobs based on AI’s impact yet, though.

“We’re seeing clearer changes in expectations than in job volume, at least for now,” he said. “One of the biggest shifts is the growing importance of AI fluency. Employers are increasingly expecting workers to understand how to use AI tools, not necessarily at an expert level, but as part of their everyday workflow.”

AI upskilling remains tenuous

Either way, data shows AI-induced job anxiety is high. According to a Resume Now survey of 1,000 adults in the US in December 2025, 60% of workers think AI will axe more jobs than it creates in 2026, and over half are concerned they’ll lose their jobs because of AI this year. 

Another Resume Now survey conducted during the same time found that 41% of respondents believe AI “is replacing, devaluing, or overlapping with parts of their job,” while 29% think of AI as a competitor that “could effectively complete at least half of their daily work tasks,” rather than act as a copilot.

Despite many real accounts of workers learning more with AI in the passenger seat, that’s not everyone’s experience: more than half of workers polled said AI hasn’t impacted the growth of their skills or how they apply them.

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At the same time, however, at least one survey suggests 92% of young workers are using AI for professional development and that it’s giving them confidence at work.

The split could be generational. Only the latter Resume Now survey mentioned respondent demographics, which were nearly evenly split between men and women, but were just 15% Gen Z, with the rest split evenly between millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers.

Spencer’s advice echoes similar sentiments across the industry: identify what only you can offer, and what parts of your work are most and least susceptible to automation.

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“Shift the focus from what AI might replace to where you add value that is harder to replicate,” he said, citing skills like judgment, communication, and real-world context. “This is less about reacting to fear and more about understanding where your strengths fit into a changing landscape.”