Will You Lose Your Job to AI?

In a world racing to adopt AI, are our jobs truly safe? We surveyed 17,000 senior leaders across industries and continents to cut through the hype and reveal the real impact of AI on the workforce. Discover which roles are most at risk, how fast disruption is coming, and what it means for your future.

Survey Overview

Just concluded our webinar last week, where we unveiled findings from our cross-continental, cross-functional survey on AI-driven job loss. Our survey was designed to pierce through the fog of surface-level narratives & discern the actual reality.

Why This Survey Was Different?

Functional Granularity: Instead of vague “tech vs non-tech” binaries, we drilled into 13 functions across marketing, engineering, ops, finance, HR, customer support and more.
Companies Diversity: From startups, midmarket, enterprises to GCCs
Sample Size: 17,000 senior leaders (Director-level and above) across industries
Geographic Spread: Spanned 6 important countries with varied AI maturity & labor dynamics.

The result? A granular, function-by-function map of disruption that most headlines won’t touch.

Key Insights

25% Labor Displacement is Scarily Sooner: Job displacement is a direct result of tangible, AI-led productivity gains. And those gains are a function of AI adoption rate – potency of adopted models. Even with today’s adoption levels and model capabilities held constant, massive labor disruption is sooner than most forecasts suggest.
Displacement Timeline Is Accelerating: The average job elimination cycle due to AI is now 18 months, down from 4–5 years in traditional automation.
Not Just the Usual Suspects: While marketing and customer service roles remain high-risk, functions like product management, software engineering, procurement, and even parts of strategic finance are seeing rapid signs of erosion.
Geographic Nuance Matters: In the US and India, the fear of displacement is highest (74% and 68% respectively), but the actual adoption curve is fastest in India, Indonesia and UK.
AI Is Restructuring, Not Just Replacing: 48% of US companies are using AI to redesign departments, not just reduce headcount.
Leadership Is Not Immune: Contrary to popular belief, some mid-level and even senior roles vulnerable.

Key Takeaways

The webinar didn’t end with doom, it provided the essential nuances and clarity for the most discussed topic on the planet today.

Grounded Framework for AI Adoption

Adoption is multi-dimensional, layered, functional, and measurable. This acknowledgment is absolutely critical otherwise “adoption” gets misinterpreted leading to frenzy headlines, misleading conclusions & stupid actions. Our survey provides a framework that allows to study this reality. It moves past the hype and explores reality of Gen-AI adoption across depth and breadth to assess its impact on unemployment.

Right Vocabulary to Talk About Gen-AI Adoption

To communicate Gen-AI adoption accurately, we need a language that tells depth and scope. Instead of vague declarations like “we’re using Gen-AI”, organizations should be able to say “We’re at Level 2 in Marketing (20% of processes transformed), and Level 3 in Logistics (10% transformed).” This kind of vocabulary prioritizes the right metrics, such as number of transformed processes, not just experimental pilots; Percentage of processes automated or Net hours saved due to AI augmentation.

Goes Beyond Canned Narratives

Agentic AI (Level 5) is no longer speculative: it’s real, though still niche. However, by mid-2026, 50% of processes currently at Level 3 and Level 4 are projected to cross into Level 5. Our report also covers Function-specific job erosion forecasts for 2026–27, immediate labour shockwaves across sectors & emerging social fault lines, demanding urgent policy innovation & governments’ reactions.

Actionable Perspective Balancing Alarmism & Utopia

Report draws insights from our large-scale survey of 16,931 individuals and integrates expert opinion, economic modeling, and existing research to create a multidimensional view. Key sources include the 2025 AI Index Report by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), GPTZero’s adoption analytics, Gallagher’s 2025 Attitudes to AI Adoption and Risk Benchmarking Survey, QuantumBlack’s State of AI report, and McKinsey’s ongoing research into enterprise AI deployment. Together, these inputs form a composite lens that balances public sentiment, institutional foresight, and operational realities.

Final Thought

This survey was built to provoke, inform, and equip. And judging by the post-webinar engagement, it did just that. If you’re still relying on generic headlines to guide your workforce strategy, you’re already behind. The question is “are you mapping reality or reacting to noise”?

Here a few displacement index & functional breakdown excerpts from The GraaS.webinar.