Research AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-16

One in five American workers now gives AI a job that used to go to a colleague

Epoch AI and Ipsos polled 1,106 employed US adults between 10 and 19 July and published the results this month. Across ten common work tasks, one in five said AI now does most or all of at least one task that they or their team previously handed to a coworker or a contractor. The substitution is most common for analysing data (7.1% of respondents), reading work documents (5.7%) and maintaining records (5.3%). Close to half of those surveyed use AI at work at all, and usage within a task ranges from 25% for maintaining records to 57% for designing systems and software. Where AI does most or all of a task, 53% of workers say it takes less time. About two thirds of AI output is used with little or no revision, and only 5% needs substantial rework. The researchers read this as tasks being reallocated between people and AI rather than whole jobs being automated.

Why it mattersMost arguments about AI and employment are fought at the level of the job, which moves slowly and is hard to measure. This poll measures the unit that actually moves first: the individual task, and specifically the task you would otherwise have passed to someone else. That is the quiet path by which junior work disappears — not through layoffs, but through work that simply never gets delegated.

✓ Verified · 3 sources

Read in the app — free, in 9 languages

One in five American workers now gives AI a job that used to go to a colleague

Related stories