ChatGPT said you’d lose your jobs right now — it’s more like 3% of workers

Do artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT eliminate jobs, create new ones, or both? There’s a lot of speculation regarding this question, but little solid data in the U.S. to answer it.

I’m a sociologist who researches AI, among other topics .

Seeking answers to that question and others, I commissioned an online survey by YouGov , a market research agency, to ask 1,250 U.S. workers between July 30 and Aug.

4, 2026, about their experiences with AI and their attitudes toward the technology.

The survey covered workers’ current use of AI, their perceptions of how it will affect their future job opportunities, and how they believe it has affected their job opportunities up until now.

It is the basis of my study in progress, the results of which have not been peer reviewed.

The findings show that four years after ChatGPT’s debut in November 2022 , AI has not yet resulted in substantial job losses or gains for these workers, contrary to what some AI pessimists and optimists might have predicted.

Only about 3% of workers said they had lost a job due to AI since 2023, while roughly 6% indicated they landed a job that didn’t exist before AI.

Approximately 9% said they’ve earned a promotion or advancement related to AI.

For AI pessimists like me , it’s surprising that so few of the surveyed workers said they had lost jobs due to AI.

And it might raise a few eyebrows to see how uncommon it was for workers to indicate any AI-related job changes since 2023. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); Limited impact so far YouGov surveyed a sample of employed U.S. adults intended to reflect the nation’s employed population in terms of age, gender, race, education and other characteristics.

My 25-question survey included the following three questions concerning AI’s role in job changes since 2023: 1) Since 2023, have you lost a job due to AI, such as AI’s automation of your previous job’s tasks? 2) Since 2023, have you landed a new job that did not previously exist before the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), such as an AI data labeler or AI compliance specialist? 3) Since 2023, have you received a promotion or advancement that you believe was related to AI, such as your AI skills? Approximately 95% of surveyed workers said “no” to the first question; 90% said no to the second; and 88% said no to the last.

Between 3% and 4% were “not sure” they experienced any of these AI-related job changes.

The numbers for each question may add up to more than 100% due to rounding.