Gartner Predicts AI Integration in All IT Work by 2030, No "Jobs Bloodbath" Expected

No "AI jobs bloodbath" as AI permeates all IT work over the next 5 years

In five years, you won't be able to spell IT without AI, Gartner predicted today. VP analysts Alicia Mullery and Daryl Plummer delivered the sentiment at their keynote address at Gartner's IT Symposium in Gold Coast, Australia, as reported by The Register. Gartner believes that by 2030, all work performed by an IT department will involve the use of AI. That's a progression from the 81 percent of IT work that's done today without any use of AI, per Mullery. By 2030, not only will all IT work rely on AI, but much of it will be performed by bots without the help of humans, Gartner's analysts said. They predicted that in five years, 25 percent of IT work will be totally performed by bots, while 75 percent of IT workloads will be performed by humans with the help of AI. This isn't a welcome prediction for AI naysayers, who often point to potential job losses as a reason to be dubious about AI. Today, many organizations already use AI to complete tasks that humans had historically performed in other industries, including recruiting, journalism, customer service, and even social media influencing. No IT jobs bloodbath The IT industry has already prepared for thousands of AI-driven job losses and will likely see more. Eventually, though, AI will be something that everyone in IT will have to become familiar with, if Gartner's predictions prove correct. Despite the growing role of AI-automated workloads in IT, Gartner doesn't expect the technology to create an "AI jobs bloodbath," Plummer said. Currently, only 1 percent of job losses are the result of AI, per Gartner's numbers. That doesn't mean there won't be any AI-related job losses in IT, though. Plummer and Mullery believe that AI will take away entry-level IT jobs. This aligns with some of what we're already seeing today. According to data from labor research firm Revelio Labs, "highly AI exposed entry-level jobs have declined by over 40 percent" from January 2023 to July 2025. In August, Goldman Sachs Research predicted that AI "could displace 6 to 7 percent of the US workforce if AI is widely adopted," but noted that the impact would likely be "transitory" as new jobs are created. With AI changing the way that IT employees work, it's expected to expand the amount of work that IT departments can complete, making it more essential that IT departments can justify their headcounts. "You never want to look like you have too many people," Plummer said. Every industry is still working to understand what impact AI will have on jobs, including the replacement of certain roles. However, there's also a popular sentiment that AI will ultimately settle into being a helpful tool for employees that enables workers to do more and/or different types of work rather than totally replacing them. Some expect that AI will eventually create more jobs than it kills. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 released in January, based on data from 1,000 companies employing 14 million global workers, found that by 2030, AI could create 78 million more jobs than it eliminates. Other pressing AI concerns It's too early to know if AI will end up being positive or negative for job opportunities in IT or otherwise. In the more immediate future, the question is whether organizations are implementing AI in ways that are effective and efficient and that drive improvements for employees and/or customers. During their keynote, Gartner's analysts highlighted the challenges companies are having in managing AI-related costs and the different AI capabilities coming out. Currently, 65 percent of companies are losing money on AI investments, per Gartner research cited. More broadly speaking, the average American remains skeptical about AI being able to improve their lives. In a survey of 5,410 Americans that Pew Research Center released in April, 51 percent said they're more concerned about AI than they are excited. Among the most common concerns cited were job losses, deepfakes, misinformation, and bias.

All IT work to involve AI by 2030, says Gartner

Analyst firm doesn't rate OpenAI as an enterprise-ready vendor All work in IT departments will be done with the help of AI by 2030, according to analyst firm Gartner, which thinks massive job losses won't result. Speaking during the keynote address of the firm's Symposium event in Australia today, VP analyst Alicia Mullery said 81 percent of work is currently done by humans acting alone without AI assistance. Five years from now Gartner believes 75 percent of IT work will be human activity augmented by AI, with the remainder performed by bots alone. Distinguished VP analyst Daryl Plummer said this shift will mean IT departments gain labor capacity and will need to show they deserve to keep it. "You never want to look like you have too many people," he advised, before suggesting technology leaders consult with peers elsewhere in a business to identify value-adding opportunities IT departments can execute. Plummer said Gartner doesn't foresee an "AI jobs bloodbath" in IT or other industries for at least five years, adding that just one percent of job losses today are attributable to AI. He and Mullery did predict a reduction in entry-level jobs, as AI lets senior staff tackle work they would once have assigned to juniors. The two analysts also forecast that businesses will struggle to implement AI effectively, because the costs of running AI workloads balloon. ERP, Plummer said, has straightforward up-front costs: You pay to license and implement it, then to train people so they can use it. AI needs that same initial investment but few organizations can keep up with AI vendors' pace of innovation. Adopting AI therefore creates a requirement for near-constant exploration of use cases and subsequent retraining. Plummer said orgs that adopt AI should expect to uncover 10 unanticipated ancillary costs, among them the need to acquire new datasets, and the costs of managing multiple models. The need to use one AI model to check the output of others - a necessary step to verify accuracy - is another cost to consider. AI's hidden costs mean Gartner believes 65 percent of CIOs aren't breaking even on AI investments. Plummer and Mullery nonetheless suggested IT execs pursue AI, and recommended the big four hyperscalers - AWS, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba - as key suppliers because they are the equivalent of geopolitical superpowers in terms of their ability to marshal resources and talent. They labeled OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, DeepSeek and XAI "wildcard vendors" and said all are "not enterprise ready." Plummer told The Register OpenAI just hasn't done the work to create licenses that cautious enterprise buyers need. He said the company has done too little to integrate its offerings with common enterprise software like Microsoft 365, even though that suite's Copilot AI components rely on OpenAI technology. The pair also advised IT execs to quickly move past AI-powered chatbots, and instead adopt interactive agents capable of doing things like autonomously conducting negotiations with suppliers. ®