A new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has shown that about 25 per cent of global employment falls within occupations potentially exposed to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), with higher shares in high-income countries.

The joint study from the ILO and Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) also found that one in four jobs globally is potentially exposed to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI).

However, it stated that the transformation, not replacement, is the most likely outcome.The report, ‘Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure’, introduces the most detailed global assessment of how GenAI may reshape the world of work.

The index provides a unique and nuanced snapshot of how AI could transform occupations and employment across countries, by combining nearly 30,000 occupational tasks with expert validation, AI-assisted scoring, and ILO harmonised microdata.

ILO Senior Researcher and lead author of the study, Pawel Gmyrek, said: “We went beyond theory to build a tool grounded in real-world jobs. By combining human insight, expert review, and generative AI models, we’ve created a replicable method that helps countries assess risk and respond with precision.”

The report’s key findings include new ‘exposure gradients’, which cluster occupations according to their level of exposure to Generative AI, helping policymakers distinguish between jobs at high risk of full automation and those more likely to evolve through task transformation.

It said the exposure among women continues to be significantly higher. In high-income countries, jobs at the highest risk of automation make up 9.6 per cent of female employment – a stark contrast to 3.5 per cent of such jobs among men. Also, clerical jobs face the highest exposure of all due to GenAI’s theoretical ability to automate many of their tasks.

However, it stated that the expanding abilities of GenAI result in increased exposure to some highly digitised cognitive jobs in media, software, and finance-related occupations.

The report stressed that full job automation, however, remains limited, since many tasks, though done more efficiently, continue to require human involvement.

The study highlights the possible divergent paths for occupations accustomed to rapid digital transformations, such as software developers, and those where limited digital skills might have more negative effects.

It said policies guiding the digital transitions would be a leading factor in determining the extent to which workers may be retained in occupations that are transforming because of AI, and how such transformation affects the quality of jobs.

Senior expert at NASK and one of the co-authors of the new paper, Marek Troszyński, said: “This index helps identify where GenAI is likely to have the biggest impact, so countries can better prepare and protect workers.
Our next step is to apply this new index to detailed labour force data from Poland.”

As a policy tool for inclusive transitions, the ILO–NASK study emphasises that the figures reflect potential exposure, not actual job losses.
It stated that technological constraints, infrastructure gaps, and skills shortages meant that implementation would differ widely by country and sector.

The authors stressed that GenAI’s effect was more likely to transform jobs than eliminate them. The report calls on governments, employers, and workers’ organisations to engage in social dialogue and shape proactive, inclusive strategies that could enhance productivity and job quality, especially in exposed sectors.In his submission, Senior Economist at the ILO, Janine Berg, explained that it is easy to get lost in the AI hype.