The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has analysed the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workplace and employment prospects across its 38 member countries, including the UK.

The Employment Outlook report said that OECD countries “may be on the brink of an AI revolution” though adoption of AI is still relatively low across firms.

The rapid progress of generative AI, falling costs, and increasing availability of workers with relevant AI skills does suggest a turning point in the expansion of AI.

Tracking the emerging technology is vital considering the potential impacts on the workplace, displacing workers, making certain skills redundant, and replacing jobs.

According to the report, 27% of jobs are in occupations at high risk of automation when AI is taken into account.

About 20% of workers in finance and manufacturing said they were very or extremely worried about job loss in the next ten years.

According to OECD’s analysis, however, AI’s progress in automating non-routine tasks has enhanced its threats to more technical “high-skilled” jobs, including business professionals, managers, science and engineering professionals, and legal, social and cultural professionals.

Still, 63% of finance and manufacturing workers surveyed said AI had improved the enjoyment of their job.

Further, 79% and 80% in finance and manufacturing respectively said AI had improved their own performance.

Boosting productivity is a key motivation to AI adoption, and if this improves workers’ performance, it may keep their jobs secure while the technology is introduced.

Interesting, OECD’s survey found that overall, workers said that using AI improved their mental and physical health. 54% of finance professionals and 55% of manufacturing professionals said AI had a positive impact on their mental health, with 49% of finance and 65% of manufacturing professionals saying the same for their physical health.

The survey also found that the use of AI in managerial roles, such as monitoring and feedback assessments, tend to be more pervasive – workers often reported higher work intensity and less human-to-human interaction.

However, AI is likely to automate more tedious and repetitive tasks, which workers said improved their job quality.

Further, workers using AI said it gave them greater autonomy in their work – workers had more control over the sequence of their tasks and could even complete a greater range of tasks if they employed AI.

This puts into greater context the increased pace of work often seen with the introduction of AI. 75% of workers surveyed in finance and 77% in manufacturing said that the pace at which they performed tasks increased, but this did not necessarily equate to greater stress, as workers had more control and autonomy.

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AI continues to serve a mixed-bag of results across the board, and no where does this appear to be more true than in the case of inclusion and bias.

The introduction of AI allows those with sight, hearing, or speech impairments and other physical disabilities to access more and different types of work.

Further, AI’s ability to automate tasks has helped certain low-skilled workers access more jobs, such as via real-time translation and improvement in writing and customer service skills.

However, AI has put many workers who lack digital skills at greater risk, and this negatively impacts inclusiveness.

This tends to match perceptions, with workers thinking that those with disabilities are likely to benefit from AI’s introduction, but low-skilled workers are likely to be harmed by its use.

Bias is still an issue as well – while 54% and 53% of workers in finance and manufacturing, respectively, think AI has improved fairness in management, one in ten think it has worsened fairness in management.

Overall, the OECD’s Employment Outlook found varied results concerning the impacts of AI on the workplace – which makes sense. Employees at different levels of management and skill development will likely face different outcomes from AI’s introduction.

As mentioned, the uptake of AI is relatively low, so OECD admitted much of their results can not yet be called conclusive.