{
  "id": 1723098,
  "title": "AI was supposed to put white-collar professionals at risk. Instead, another group is shrinking fast",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/18/ai-was-supposed-to-put-white-collar-professionals-at-risk-instead",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-18T12:57:38.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fast Company",
    "slug": "fast-company",
    "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/91584114/ai-was-supposed-put-white-collar-professionals-risk-instead-another-group-shrinking-fast"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The typical method for forecasting artificial intelligence's impact on jobs entailed constructing rankings based on how many tasks within a profession could potentially be performed by technology. Occupations like managers, financial analysts, and even lawyers frequently topped these risk lists, surpassing white-collar roles such as data entry or filing. Economist Gad Levanon recently verified this theory using government employment data from the past two years and shared his findings. Surprisingly, roles previously deemed at high risk—such as management, engineering, science, and law—have continued to grow, and in some instances, accelerated. Simultaneously, occupations previously considered low risk, such as records clerks, bookkeepers, and customer service staff, are experiencing rapid contraction. To ensure clerical decline wasn't merely due to their association with shrinking industries, Levanon compared each occupation's growth rate against the average growth across the industries where it was prevalent, isolating the occupation's growth from its surrounding environment. The outcome remained consistent; clerical work isn't dwindling because it happens to reside in a struggling sector. Instead, it's contracting within sectors where managerial roles are expanding. Experts agree this is in line with the actual application of AI in professional settings. Rudy DeFelice, executive vice president and global head of AI strategy at Harbor Global, explains that \"AI currently automates portions of these jobs, but it does not automate the responsibility attached to them.\" This distinction between task and responsibility illuminates why certain roles are shrinking faster than others. Sheldon Arora, CEO of StaffDNA, elaborates that \"the reason we're observing an immediate impact on clerical roles is that they involve standardized, rules-based processes that are relatively easy to automate end-to-end.\" For managerial roles, he believes \"AI shouldn't and really can't replace human-level work that involves thought leadership, building and managing teams, and profession-specific experience like law, medicine, and analysis.\" Looking ahead, administrative tasks, customer support, documentation, and back-office functions are anticipated to continue bearing the brunt of this shift, with experts projecting steady, incremental declines in these areas over the next three to five years as AI becomes more deeply embedded in standard business operations. This transition is reshaping how employees perceive their career security. Jeff McMillan, CEO and founder of AI advisory and education firm McMillanAI, notes that \"people are fundamentally questioning their place within organizations and where their future value lies, an uncertainty only intensified by the relentless wave of new technology.\" This anxiety is particularly concentrated among middle management. In terms of the future, those who hold roles requiring judgment and interpersonal skills may be relatively protected from such disruptions. Kelly Heuer, vice president of learning at the Project Management Institute, asserts that \"their roles don't depend on technical skills but rather a high level of critical thinking, strong stakeholder management, and sharp human judgment that they practice every single day to help them navigate uncertainty and turn strategic priorities into impactful outcomes.\"",
  "summary": "The standard approach to predicting AI’s impact on jobs involved building rankings based on how many of an occupation’s tasks could theoretically be handled by technology instead . Rankings like these consistently placed managers , financial analysts, and even lawyers near the top of the risk list, often above clerical positions like data entry or filing. Last week, economist Gad Levanon put that…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}