The rapid rise of artificial intelligence tools has sparked dire warnings about a collapsing career ladder and large-scale job losses. While AI will almost certainly disrupt some roles, experts told ABC News the technology could also create new job opportunities.
Companies might need employees to oversee or verify AI systems. Other roles could require more complex or creative human input, complementing what AI can do. Still, there are many unanswered questions about exactly what new jobs will emerge if AI transforms the U.S. workplace.
"AI isn’t some unstoppable tidal wave—we do have choices about how to use it," said Harry Holzer, a public policy professor at Georgetown University and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mixed predictions on AI’s impact
Forecasts about AI’s impact on jobs differ widely.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (creator of the Claude AI model), told Axios in May that AI could eliminate half of U.S. entry-level jobs within five years.
By contrast, a World Economic Forum survey of 1,000 large global companies named AI as the top driver of new jobs by 2030. According to that survey, AI will help create 170 million jobs over the next five years—far exceeding the 92 million jobs it will replace.
Historically, technological advances have created more jobs than they’ve destroyed. But AI may be a different case, says Ethan Mollick, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With A.I.
"Every time there's a new technology, people worry that ‘this time it’s different,’" Mollick told ABC News. "And AI might really be different—but we don’t yet know exactly how."
New AI-focused roles are already growing
Even as experts debate the future, AI-related jobs are already on the rise.
Chris Martin, lead researcher at job site Glassdoor, said the share of job postings explicitly mentioning AI more than doubled between 2023 and 2024. That share has grown another 56% so far in 2025 compared to the same time last year.
According to Martin, AI-focused jobs fall into two categories:
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Existing roles adapted for AI (like software engineers or attorneys specializing in AI).
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Entirely new AI-specific jobs, such as AI trainers who improve AI systems by providing expert knowledge (for example, in a foreign language or other domain).
AI training jobs, often freelance, grew more than fourfold in 2024 over 2023, and that growth has continued in 2025.
But not all AI-related roles are booming. Listings for "prompt engineers"—who design effective queries for AI tools—have mostly disappeared, Martin said.
Uncertain future for AI jobs
Looking ahead, the outlook for AI-related jobs is still unclear.
Some analysts expect new roles for humans to evaluate the accuracy and quality of AI output. Others say AI could eventually become good enough to eliminate even those jobs.
AI might also reshape jobs by eliminating generalist roles and creating demand for highly specialized ones, for instance, shifting a primary care doctor into a role focused only on diagnosis. But even some specialized professions could be threatened as AI capabilities advance.
Ultimately, the scale and type of job opportunities will depend on how these AI systems develop.
"The big question is: What happens next with these systems?" Mollick said.
David Autor, an MIT professor who studies technological change and the workforce, added that it's hard to predict brand-new jobs that don’t exist yet in an AI-transformed economy.
"We’re not good at predicting the new work; we’re better at predicting how current work will change," Autor said.
Given all the uncertainty, Mollick advised caution.
"The worst thing you could do right now is make a complex career decision based on what AI is doing today," he said. "Because we just don’t know yet."