New data from The Burning Glass Institute suggests the same jobs are experiencing automation and augmentation. Up until now, “no study has yet systematically examined whether the same occupations experience both forces simultaneously when measured through employer demand for skills.”
This confirms what many CHROs have already observed: automation and augmentation are less distinct than they are deeply intertwined. (See our insights on a recent Deloitte think piece here).
Researchers analyzed how millions of users interact with Claude.ai and found that “workers engaged in back-and-forth dialogue with the AI to refine outputs” as a thought partner as well as a task executor.
“The project manager whose scheduling tasks are automated is the same project manager whose strategic responsibilities are expanding. The financial analyst who no longer builds models from scratch is the same analyst who now interprets and pressure-tests AI-generated outputs.”
AI is impacting skilled work in real-time and staying relevant will mean upskilling fast:
These findings pose a more urgent question which is not “whether AI will take jobs, but how quickly the jobs it touches will change, and whether workers and institutions can adapt in time.”
Employers and policymakers that continue to rethink how work gets done in real-time will be better off — relying on empirically grounded insights rather than speculation.
Bottom line: AI isn’t a disruption event—it’s a continuous restructuring of work.
