MIT Study Reveals AI Can Already Replace 11.7% of U.S. Workforce, Worth $1.2 Trillion in Wages

MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce

People walk on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 15, 2025. Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday released a study that found that artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, or as much as $1.2 trillion in wages across finance, health care and professional services. The study was conducted using a labor simulation tool called the Iceberg Index, which was created by MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The index simulates how 151 million U.S. workers interact across the country and how they are affected by AI and corresponding policy. The Iceberg Index, which was announced earlier this year, offers a forward-looking view of how AI may reshape the labor market, not just in coastal tech hubs but across every state in the country. For lawmakers preparing billion-dollar reskilling and training investments, the index offers a detailed map of where disruption is forming down to the zip code. "Basically, we are creating a digital twin for the U.S. labor market," said Prasanna Balaprakash, ORNL director and co-leader of the research. ORNL is a Department of Energy research center in eastern Tennessee, home to the Frontier supercomputer, which powers many large-scale modeling efforts. The index runs population-level experiments, revealing how AI reshapes tasks, skills and labor flows long before those changes show up in the real economy, Balaprakash said. The index treats the 151 million workers as individual agents, each tagged with skills, tasks, occupation and location. It maps more than 32,000 skills across 923 occupations in 3,000 counties, then measures where current AI systems can already perform those skills. What the researchers found is that the visible tip of the iceberg -- the layoffs and role shifts in tech, computing and information technology -- represents just 2.2% of total wage exposure, or about $211 billion. Beneath the surface lies the total exposure, the $1.2 trillion in wages, and that includes routine functions in human resources, logistics, finance, and office administration. Those are areas sometimes overlooked in automation forecasts. The index is not a prediction engine about exactly when or where jobs will be lost, the researchers said. Instead, it's meant to give a skills-centered snapshot of what today's AI systems can already do, and give policymakers a structured way to explore what-if scenarios before they commit real money and legislation. The researchers partnered with state governments to run proactive simulations. Tennessee, North Carolina and Utah helped validate the model using their own labor data and have begun building policy scenarios using the platform.

MIT study says agentic AI can already replace 11% of the US workforce

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. The trillion-dollar question: Is AI technology actually going to disrupt the job market in the US and elsewhere in the world? While the jury is still out, new speculative exercises are trying to answer this most important question of our digitally-entrapped society. Teams from MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a novel way to simulate AI's potential impact on US jobs. The effort produced the Iceberg Index, a digital twin of the national labor market. Researchers launched Project Iceberg earlier this year to simulate an AI-powered workforce alongside more than 151 million human workers. The "sandbox" exercise leverages ORNL's powerful supercomputer infrastructure, offering insights into AI technologies' potential to replace real-world jobs. According to CNBC, MIT's study of the simulation shows that a theoretical AI workforce could already cover 11.7 percent of the US labor market. In terms of wages, the impact could reach as much as $1.2 trillion across the finance, healthcare, and professional services industries. Project Iceberg evaluated 151 million US workers, considering their skills, tasks, and locations. The simulation mapped more than 32,000 professional skills across 923 occupations in 3,000 counties. Finally, researchers assessed the ability of AI agents to perform the same skills and professions. The team admits that the Iceberg Index cannot predict precisely how the workplace will evolve. However, it collaborated with state authorities to run a proactive simulation of agentic AI's impact. Local governments provided labor data to feed the model, and MIT researchers outlined the reskilling workers will likely need in the near future. The Iceberg Index can reportedly describe the replacement of human jobs in a specific county, down to individual census blocks. Furthermore, the project simulates the job market across all 50 US states, rather than focusing only on tech hubs in coastal regions, as traditional assessments have done. North Carolina state Senator DeAndrea Salvador closely collaborated with MIT on Project Iceberg and claims the simulation can test various scenarios for AI in the workforce. Researchers hope the study can proactively inform policymakers about the investments needed for training programs or infrastructure plans before committing actual funds. Currently, predictions about AI in the job market are about as reliable as the average chatbot interaction. Market data show that organizations have sometimes had to rehire former employees after attempting to replace them with AI. Meanwhile, a new bipartisan bill aims to require corporations to disclose which jobs are being replaced by AI.

AI can replace nearly 12% of U.S. workers: MIT study

A Dexmate robot demonstration at the Nvidia booth during the Nvidia GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images) AI is able to replace nearly 12% of the U.S. workforce, according to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The survey simulated over 151 million U.S. workers interacting with AI tools across the country using a so-called "Iceberg Index" as a metric to measure automation potential. It was unveiled in August by MIT and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and captures the extent to which AI can perform occupational tasks. The study surveyed 32,000 skills across 923 jobs in 3,000 counties across the U.S., going beyond large coastal cities to dig deeper. The automation shown in the study was heavily concentrated among white-collar jobs in the finance, administrative and the professional services sector, encompassing $1.2 trillion in wages. Policymakers are hotly debating the extent to which the so-called AI revolution will disrupt the U.S. economy through job losses resulting from automation. Last week, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia warned that job seekers fresh out of college face new barriers stemming from companies employing AI to complete tasks that are common in first jobs. He said in a CNBC interview that he believed a 25% unemployment rate among recent college graduates was possible if policymakers do nothing about AI. However, other experts say that widespread automation hasn't taken root in the U.S. economy yet. An October analysis from the Yale Budget Lab said that there hasn't been "discernible disruption" since ChatGPT was introduced three years ago. "Historically, widespread technological disruption in workplaces tends to occur over decades, rather than months or years," the Yale paper said.

MIT study finds AI is already capable of replacing 11.7% of U.S. workers

A new study from MIT that shows that AI might be poised to replace a lot more jobs than what initial estimates might predict. According to researchers, a hidden mass of data reveals that AI is currently capable of taking over 11.7% of the labor market. The new estimate comes courtesy of a project called The Iceberg Index, which was made through a partnership between MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a federally funded research center in Tennessee. According to its website, the Iceberg Index "simulates an agentic U.S. -- a human-AI workforce where 151M+ human workers coordinate with thousands of AI agents." In simpler terms, the tool is designed to simulate precisely how AI is poised to disrupt the current workforce, down to specific local zip codes. The Iceberg Index model treats America's 151 million workers as individual agents, each categorized by their skills, tasks, occupation, and location. In total, it maps more than 32,000 skills and 923 occupations across 3,000 counties. In an interview with CNBC, Prasanna Balaprakash, ORNL director and co-leader of the research, described this as a "digital twin for the U.S. labor market." Using that base of data, the index analyzes to what extent digital AI tools can already perform certain technical and cognitive tasks, and then produces an estimate of what AI exposure in each area looks like. Already, state governments in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Utah are using the index to prepare for AI-driven workforce changes. Here are three main takeaways from the study:

AI already capable of replacing 11.7% of U.S. workforce, MIT study finds (SP500:)

A new study released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed that artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, potentially impacting $1.2 trillion in wages across finance, healthcare, and professional services. The research, conducted using a labor MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. jobs, impacting $1.2 trillion in wages. Routine roles in HR, logistics, finance, and office administration are most exposed beyond just tech jobs. Policymakers can use it to identify exposure hotspots and test training or policy interventions before large investments.

Artificial Intelligence Can Already Replace 12 Percent of U.S. Jobs, MIT Study Finds

Meanwhile, one of the 'godfathers' of AI warns that the new technology will destroy millions of jobs and create massive unemployment. A new study from MIT suggests that artificial intelligence could already replace nearly 12 percent of the U.S. labor market, affecting jobs that account for as much as $1.2 trillion in wages across finance, healthcare, and professional services. The research, conducted with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used a labor simulation tool called the Iceberg Index to model how AI affects 151 million American workers. The index maps more than 32,000 skills across 923 occupations and measures where current AI systems can already perform those skills. Researchers found that the most visible job shifts in tech represent just a small fraction -- 2.2 percent, or $211 billion -- of the total wage exposure. The larger, submerged part of the "iceberg" includes $1.2 trillion in wages across functions like human resources, logistics, and office administration -- areas often overlooked in automation forecasts. Rather than predicting specific job losses, the researchers say the index provides a snapshot of AI's current capabilities to help policymakers make informed decisions. Several state governments, including Tennessee, North Carolina, and Utah, have already partnered with the researchers to run simulations and build policy scenarios. "Project Iceberg enables policymakers and business leaders to identify exposure hotspots, prioritize training and infrastructure investments, and test interventions before committing billions to implementation," the report says. One North Carolina state senator, DeAndrea Salvador, who worked on the project, highlighted the tool's ability to provide localized data. "One of the things that you can go down to is county-specific data to essentially say, within a certain census block, here are the skills ... and what could that mean in terms of the shifts in the state's GDP in that area, but also in employment," she said, according to CNBC. The study also challenges the idea that AI's impact will be limited to coastal tech hubs, showing that exposed occupations are spread across all 50 states. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called "godfathers" of AI, continues to voice dire warnings about the technology. During a conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders at Georgetown University last week, Mr. Hinton argued that AI's rapid deployment will be unlike past technological revolutions. "The people who lose their jobs won't have other jobs to go to," Mr. Hinton said. "If AI gets as smart as people -- or smarter -- any job they might do can be done by AI." Mr. Hinton, who won a Turing Award for his pioneering work on the neural networks that underpin modern generative AI, has previously expressed regret over his life's work. He believes the AI industry cannot be profitable without replacing human labor and has warned that we are less than 20 years away from artificial general intelligence, an AI with human or superhuman intelligence. Strikingly, Mr. Hinton now claims that the latest models like the unreleased GPT-5 "know thousands of times more than us already." However, some experts disagree, pointing out that while large language models are trained on vast amounts of data, they don't truly "know" or understand the information. Furthermore, attempts to replace workers with AI agents have often failed, particularly in customer service roles. Despite these setbacks, Mr. Hinton remains concerned. He argued that billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg haven't considered the economic consequences of mass unemployment. "If the workers don't get paid, there's nobody to buy their products," he said.