These 40 Careers Are (Mostly) Safe From AI According To Microsoft – For Now

AI isn’t just writing poems, generating cat memes, or helping you draft that awkward email to HR – it might also be eyeing up your job. A new Microsoft study has crunched the data to reveal which professions are most, and least, likely to be nudged aside by generative AI tools like its own Bing Copilot.

By analysing 200,000 anonymised conversations between users and Bing Copilot, researchers identified the work activities most often given to AI – tasks like providing information, writing, teaching, and advising. They then compared these to the day-to-day duties of hundreds of jobs, calculating an “AI applicability score” for each role.

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The bad news? Interpreters and translators top the “most at risk” list with a 49% score, closely followed by historians, writers and authors, passenger attendants, and customer service representatives. Even some glamour gigs aren’t safe – models and radio DJs made the list. As the study explains: “We find the highest AI applicability scores for knowledge work occupation groups such as computer and mathematical, and office and administrative support, as well as occupations such as sales whose work activities involve providing and communicating information.”

Bill Gates has already warned that humans may soon not be needed “for most things”, and the numbers give weight to that claim – the top 40 at-risk jobs collectively employ over 8.4 million people in the US.

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But there’s good news too. The roles least likely to be replaced are those requiring hands-on skill, unpredictable problem-solving, or close human care. Think dredge operators, cement masons, ship engineers, oral surgeons, and nursing assistants. Even dishwashers and roofers rank among the safest. These low-risk professions account for around 5.5 million US workers.

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Dr Kiran Tomlinson, Microsoft senior researcher, stresses this isn’t a full-blown prediction of mass job losses. “Our research shows that AI supports many tasks, particularly those involving research, writing, and communication, but does not indicate it can fully perform any single occupation,” she says. The study also warns against assuming high applicability scores will always lead to layoffs: if AI boosts productivity, some companies might hire more people to scale up output rather than fewer to cut costs.

Still, the direction of travel is clear – jobs heavy on structured information and communication are more exposed, while roles involving a mix of manual work, machinery operation, and human interaction remain harder to automate. But as the researchers note, their measurements focus on current large language models. As specialised AI apps (possibly paired with robotics) evolve, even today’s “safe” jobs might not be untouchable forever.