There Are Two Futures for Jobs in an AI Era

There are two futures for jobs in an AI era.

Which side you end up on has almost nothing to do with the technology, and everything to do with how you use it. It's not just us that thinks that.

It's one of the findings in PwC's new 2026 AI Jobs Barometer, out yesterday.

Everyone will quote the productivity number, but how many will think more about what that actually means.

PwC found the labour market splitting in two.

In one track, AI does the basic work and leaves the expert thinking to people. Those jobs are thriving. Growing twice as fast as the rest, with 42% higher wage growth.

In the other, AI takes on the complex work and people are left doing the bits around it. Those jobs are falling behind.

Note, this is the same technology but with two very different outcomes.

The point that I hope should dampen the pervasive doom narrative is that the companies most exposed to AI are NOT shedding people. Yes. Not reducing their employee numbers.

Nope.

They are hiring faster and paying more than the ones avoiding it.

Used well, AI is turning out to be a job expander, not a job killer.

In professional services as an example, it is even clearer.

• 89% of AI roles are about applying AI in the work.
• Only 11% are the technical specialists building it.

Value is NOT in the people who build the AI. It is in the people who know how to use it.

This is the thing we go on about at Atheni, now sitting in PwC's data.

It is also what we see every week with our clients.

Give a team the skill to hand the synthesis and the drafting to AI, and they do not do less. They do better work, and they get the interesting part of their job back.

That is not luck, and it is not the technology deciding your future for you.

That is a capability in AI that you can build, one individual and one team at a time.

Right now, the direction you end up in in the future is still a choice.

Everyone can learn how to use AI well.