Conventional wisdom about artificial intelligence runs in two directions—utopian and dystopian. On one hand, we’re told that AI will usher in explosive productivity, endless efficiency, and new industries we can’t yet imagine. On the other hand, there are fears that machines will hollow out middle-class jobs, exacerbate inequalities, and perhaps even make large swaths of the population economically obsolete.
But like most technologies, AI’s actual impact on jobs and communities turns out to be more complicated—and more interesting. At this year’s American Economic Association meetings, three new studies presented fresh evidence on how AI is reshaping how people work, prompting both optimism and reflection.
One study by economists from the US and Greece showed that AI job growth is real—but uneven. From 2018 to 2023, counties like Santa Clara, California—home to Silicon Valley—and even Slope County, North Dakota, saw AI-related jobs reach surprisingly high shares of total employment. Interestingly, some of the fastest growth occurred in remote-work-friendly or suburban areas such as Maries, Missouri and Hughes, South Dakota, suggesting that the rise of remote work may be expanding AI’s geographic footprint.
The study also identified three key factors that predict a region’s AI job growth: education, innovation, and tight labor markets. Areas with more STEM graduates, more patent activity, and less labor market slack were significantly more likely to adopt AI. In contrast, rural areas and regions reliant on traditional industries—such as manufacturing—lagged behind, suggesting that these industrial bases face greater difficulty integrating AI.
A second study focused on AI’s effects on Europe and found something unexpected: Exposure to AI increased the share of women in affected occupations. Across 16 countries between 2011 and 2019, a 10-percentile rise in AI exposure was associated with a 2.2–2.9 percent increase in the share of female employment. The effect was strongest in countries where women had made greater educational gains and already had relatively high workforce participation. Rather than displacing women, AI appears—at least for now—to be nudging certain sectors toward greater female employment.
A third study focused on France to examine how AI adoption affects firms and their workers. Between 2018 and 2020, firms in France that adopted AI were more likely to grow. These businesses were larger, more productive, and more likely to be in technical sectors to begin with. But critically, they also saw rising employment and sales after implementing AI. Even in occupations traditionally thought to be at high risk of automation, these firms hired more, not less. The productivity effects of AI—more output per worker—appear to be lowering costs and outweighing any task-level job displacement.
That said, not all uses of AI are equal. The study found that when AI was used for high-value purposes—such as improving cybersecurity—it was associated with job growth. But when used for rote tasks like administrative processing, the effect was mildly negative. In other words, AI doesn’t automatically destroy jobs or create them. Its effects depend on how firms use it.
Taken together, these studies offer a more nuanced—and exciting—view of AI’s economic consequences. The technology is spreading, but not evenly. Its adoption rewards regions that invest in education and innovation. It may be reducing gender disparities in some sectors. And in the right hands, it is boosting productivity and labor demand.
For policymakers, these findings suggest that the challenge is not to resist AI, but to prepare for it wisely. We should be enabling people to equip themselves with the skills to thrive in AI-augmented workplaces, ensuring that first movers aren’t the only ones reaping the benefits. AI, like other general-purpose-like technologies before it, holds the potential to make Americans more prosperous—but only if we let the market work and focus our public efforts where they matter most.
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