No new tale to tell? Yale study fails to find AI job disruption 33 months after ChatGPT

A new Yale University study finds that generative AI has not yet caused significant disruption to the US labor market, despite widespread fears about job displacement since ChatGPT’s launch in 2022. The research challenges concerns that AI automation would rapidly erode demand for cognitive work, though researchers caution that AI adoption remains in its early stages and future impacts could still emerge.

What you should know: The study measured changes in worker distribution across all jobs since ChatGPT’s public release 33 months ago to test claims about AI’s workforce impact.

• Researchers found no discernible disruption in the broader labor market, contradicting fears that AI would push workers between jobs, automate them out of positions, or create new roles at scale.
• The analysis focused specifically on generative AI technology, which can create original text, images, and other content in response to user prompts.

Why this matters: The findings provide concrete data to counter dramatic predictions about AI’s immediate impact on employment, though they don’t rule out future disruption as the technology matures.

• Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (an AI research company), warned in May that AI could cause dramatic unemployment spikes, while Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in January that today’s leaders manage the last all-human workforces.
• The researchers plan monthly monitoring to track how AI’s job impacts might evolve over time.

Mixed signals from companies: While the study shows no broad labor market disruption, some specific companies have made AI-related staffing decisions.

• Tech firms including Dropbox and Duolingo have cited AI as justification for layoffs in recent years.
• A January survey showed many global employers planned workforce downsizing as AI takes over certain tasks.

AI’s practical limitations: Growing evidence suggests AI implementation faces significant hurdles that may explain the lack of widespread job displacement.

• A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report found that 95% of companies trying AI aren’t making money from it.
• Harvard Business Review identified “workslop”—a phenomenon where employees use AI tools to create low-effort work that actually generates more tasks for colleagues.
• The technology’s limitations are becoming clearer, along with the additional human oversight required to verify AI-generated work.

The big picture: While AI hasn’t yet transformed the labor market as predicted, the technology remains nascent and could still reshape employment patterns as adoption accelerates and capabilities improve.