AI Set to Reshape Millions of US Jobs and Paychecks by 2026, Says BlackRock

The march of artificial intelligence promises both promise and peril, especially for New York’s sprawling workforce.

At a recent breakfast in Midtown Manhattan, the mood among business leaders oscillated between cautious optimism and gnawing anxiety. Behind much of their unease is a single acronym: AI. Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock—the world’s preeminent asset manager—has declared, in his latest annual letter, that artificial intelligence is already reconfiguring the world of work. Global consultancies project that as much as 30% of today’s workplace tasks may be automated away before this decade ends. For the city that never sleeps, this slow-rolling transformation cannot be simply ignored.

In typically sober prose, Fink’s missive forecasts that AI-driven gains in productivity will simultaneously upend established industries and generate new ones, though not in equal measure or at equal speed. In New York City, the nation’s most populous metro and a bellwether for trends, the message lands with particular resonance. Here, some 4 million jobs span every sector from finance to food service. Few will be untouched by the coming wave of algorithmic efficiency.

Fink and others warn that the first jobs on the chopping block are those built on repetition and routine—data entry clerks, financial back-office staffers, and front-line customer-service representatives. McKinsey estimates that up to three in ten daily tasks performed in such posts could soon be handled by software. To the delight of their shareholders, employers are already piloting “assistive” AI to process insurance claims, triage emails, and monitor supply chains with tireless precision. One hedge fund executive gloated to us that his middle-office analysts are producing reports in half the time, if somewhat less enthusiastically.

For New Yorkers, the first-order impact will be felt most keenly by those with the least power to adapt. More than a quarter of the city’s workforce are immigrants, and many fill roles that require minimal formal training. Whether checking out groceries in Astoria or manning call centres in Flushing, these workers are vulnerable. Lower-wage occupations, so often lauded as “essential” during the pandemic, look anything but safe now that software can mimic their routines at a fraction of the cost.

Yet the risks to income go well beyond mere job displacement. As Fink mordantly notes, wage pressure is a near-certainty: when one machine—or, more likely, a worker equipped with sophisticated AI tools—can do the job of many, salaries inevitably sag. Industry observers expect the city’s office sector will continue to shrink—not only from remote-work attrition but also from technology’s ability to flatten corporate hierarchies. A few will prove indispensable; most will be, to put it mildly, “rebalanced.”

At the same time, cheerleaders for technological progress point to AI’s job-generating potential. The World Economic Forum, rarely prone to understatement, predicts that up to 97 million new positions may arise globally by 2030 thanks to this upheaval. Sceptics will raise an eyebrow, but there is some merit to the claim. For every legal assistant replaced by a chatbot, there is a rising demand for data scientists, machine-learning engineers, and cybersecurity analysts—occupations that are, for now, in too short supply.

This shift, however, is only useful to those able to ride the wave. The skills gap yawns wide across greater New York. While Columbia University churns out computer-science PhDs snapped up by Google and Morgan Stanley, the city’s less-polished community colleges struggle to provide rudimentary programming courses. Such disparities threaten to balkanise New York’s already unequal labour market further: a lateral move into AI-enabled sectors is, for many, more mirage than promise.

A further complication: the spoils of productivity gains may accrue almost entirely to capital holders, not wage earners. The city’s booming tech sector, already flush with venture capital, may grow even more lucrative, further driving up rents and living costs in districts like Williamsburg or Hudson Yards. Meanwhile, wage stagnation will quietly gnaw away at the living standards of the median New Yorker.

The local government’s response borders on tepid. Initiatives like “CUNY 2x Tech”, which aims to double tech graduates from public colleges, are modestly encouraging but unlikely to close the skills chasm in time. Meanwhile, street-level displacement is already evident: automated kiosks at Union Square fast-food chains, one-click mortgage approvals in Brooklyn, AI-driven legal discovery in Midtown. The Department of Labor, for its part, has issued little more than pallid advisories about reskilling—a strategy that risks becoming a cliché before it is a reality.

A tale of many cities

Globally, New York is hardly alone in grappling with these forces. London and Tokyo, two financial peers, are wrestling with eerily similar questions: Who reaps the gains from smarter, faster machines, and how can societies support those left behind? European regulators are pressing for humane “AI transitions” and corporate retraining mandates, but even in the EU, implementation lags aspiration. Across America, cities from Austin to Boston are training their own workforce, yet the pace of disruption often outstrips the pace of retraining.

For the moment, AI’s burden and promise remains paradoxical. On its current path, the technology heralds a more productive, if less equitable, urban future. Herein lies the rub for New York: if the city cannot rapidly upskill its workforce, it risks entrenching social divides and stymying its celebrated dynamism.

We reckon the best hope for New Yorkers lies not in staving off automation—an exercise in futility—but in smarter, more aggressive policy. Subsidies for technical education, increased partnerships between city agencies and the private sector, and safety nets for mid-career workers will be essential if New York is to retain its edge. The alternative is a future in which technological progress brings more disruption than dynamism, and in which the city’s famed adaptability is sorely tested.

As the city confronts this AI-infused inflection point, it must bet on human capital rather than fret over what machines might take away. New York has reinvented itself before; it must now do so again, both cleverly and quickly. ■