2 minute read / Nov 6, 2024 /
The White Collar Revolution
The major areas of AI innovation automate white-collar work. Reviewing the BLS’ data on employment for white collar work, I aggregated the data to these categories.
It’s striking that most of them already have a significant number of AI startups pursuing their ambitions to change workflows.
| Occupation | Employment (in millions) | AI Technology |
|---|---|---|
| Software Developers & IT | 2.71 | Code completion, generation, refactoring, security analysis |
| Education & Librarians | 2.37 | Computer adaptive instruction & testing |
| Engineers | 1.73 | AI CAD, construction, permitting |
| Accountants & Auditors | 1.38 | Automated book closing & reconciliation ; document ingestion |
| Life, Physical, & Social Science Occupations | 1.22 | AI radiology, drug discovery, research analysis |
| Finance | 1.13 | Public & private company diligence, compliance analysis |
| Marketing & PR | 0.9 | Ad creative production, AI design, customer lifecycle at scale |
| Management Analysts | 0.88 | Powerpoint creation, data analysis |
| Lawyers | 0.8 | Paralegal automation, opinion & demand letter drafting |
| Human Resources Specialists | 0.73 | |
| Medical & Health Services Managers | 0.49 | |
| Sales Managers | 0.4 | Automated sales coaching, AI sales development |
| Architects, Surveyors, & Cartographers | 0.28 |
Software engineers were the first to benefit with Copilot. Today, there’s a panoply of different kinds of AI software for developers, including test generation, code refactoring, code generation, & security analysis.
Within education, The promise of computer adaptive testing and an individualized tutor and the style of Alexander the Great & Aristotle is possible.,
Automated document ingestion & reconciliation for closing books is changing accounting. AI powered financial due diligence rips through public filings, private placement memoranda, & compliance automation.
Legaltech has surged automating demand letters for personal injury, writing briefs for attorneys, & chomping away paralegal work.
We could keep iterating through the list. But if a founder wanted a list of jobs to automate, the BLS’ white collar jobs boards is a wonderful place to start. AI will change these workflows & capture a meaningful fraction of the labor spend.
It’s a roadmap for the White Collar Revolution.