Stepping into the world of work often involves a degree of uncertainty, but now other questions arise. How can you prove your career with AI?
We asked people across industries how they think AI will impact their careers, and which jobs are least likely to be affected. Although this technology is still in its infancy, many people had ideas about how to best prepare for a successful career in this new world.
medicine
“Dear pharmacists, Physicians, nurses and other prescribing clinicians will have a role to play.”
The healthcare jobs most vulnerable to disruption by AI include medical secretaries, pharmacy support staff, prescription processing and call answering teams, says Hira Malik, managing pharmacist and co-founder of Ushk Pharmacy.
She says the impact will extend to administrator-led healthcare roles where staff deal with set forms, records or patient inquiries rather than making clinical decisions. For online pharmacies, this might include reviewing consultation forms, tracking missing details, processing prescription requests, prioritizing standard patient questions, or routing cases to pharmacists. While these positions are unlikely to disappear completely, many of the tasks involved are likely to be automated.
Malik said pharmacists, doctors, nurses and other prescribing clinicians remain less susceptible to turnover because they are responsible for patient safety and treatment decisions. “AI can help organize information and flag risks, but it cannot determine whether a treatment is safe or appropriate,” she says.
Some specialties, such as plastic surgery, are highly individualized and therefore unlikely to be replaced, while others, such as radiology, are more at risk. Consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Riaz Agha says: “Plastic surgery is too bespoke and individualized. Every patient is different.” But AI may eventually help surgeons analyze past cases to aid decision-making, he added.
Radiology is a “particularly vulnerable” specialty, Aga said. “There’s a lot of research now showing that AI can interpret scans with great accuracy and confidence. That doesn’t necessarily mean radiologists are going away, but the role of radiologists could evolve significantly.”
His advice is that future doctors should “learn how to properly use AI and understand both its strengths and limitations.”
education and childhood
“Child care is one of the jobs least likely to be replaced by AI.”
In education, too, experts say AI is most likely to impact administrative and day-to-day educational support roles, rather than completely replacing teachers.
“In terms of career options, teaching is a great choice,” says Sharath Jeevan, founder of Oxford University’s Generation Success Lab. “Students always need trusted adult relationships to support their learning.”
Another area where employment is expected to continue is in child care. Brett Wigdortz, founder and chief executive of child care agency Tiny, said child care is unlikely to be taken over by technology. AI can help with communication and organization, but “people want humans to take care of their children,” he says.
He said demand for childcare is strong and fills quickly, and childcare can offer high income potential with flexible work from home. Other related jobs in this field include nursery school management, high-end nannies and tutors.
law
“If AI reduces the cost of providing legal services, more jobs could become available.”
The roles of paralegals and junior lawyers are likely to be most impacted by AI, as they often involve day-to-day tasks such as reviewing documents, drafting first versions of legal documents, gathering information, and filling out forms. “These are all tasks that AI is particularly good at,” says Pierre Proner, CEO of Lawhive, an online legal services company that uses AI to help people find and work with lawyers.
However, AI won’t eliminate entry-level legal jobs.
“The role remains, it just changes,” he says. Instead of spending their days doing repetitive legal and administrative tasks, junior lawyers may focus early on developing skills in applying legal judgment and interacting with clients. Another area is overseeing the work that AI agents perform. “AI still needs oversight,” he says.
Brett Dixon, vice-president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said automating routine tasks “could give young lawyers more time and opportunity to think more deeply about complex legal issues”.
Some less routine areas of law, such as family law and litigation, are less directly affected by AI. However, Proner believes AI agents are still very capable of helping lawyers prepare cases and run law firms’ back offices more efficiently.
One of the profession’s biggest challenges, Proner said, is determining “what the progression path is from junior lawyer to senior lawyer,” as many traditional training tasks are automated.
He said graduates should acquire AI skills now, arguing that AI skills are becoming as important as Word or Excel proficiency in the past. He said companies are increasingly evaluating candidates on their ability to use technology, asking potential hires, “How do you use AI? Are you building mood-coded apps?” [with AI prompts]? Are you working with AI agents?”
He said far more people need access to the law than businesses can help. He said AI could reduce the cost of providing legal services, which could result in more jobs.
hospitality
“Human connections should not be replaced by AI.”
Professor Graham Miller, academic director of the Westmont Institute of Tourism and Hospitality at the Nova School of Business and Economics, says AI could reshape the distribution of jobs within hotels, moving jobs from back-office functions to front-office customer-facing roles.
He says there will always be a role for human staff in hospitality. “I recently stayed at a hotel in Barcelona and the staff there were amazing, really warm, human and welcoming,” he says. “They sit down and make you a cup of coffee. There’s no way AI can do that job. AI shouldn’t replace this kind of human-to-human connection that the best hotels have always provided.”
“Ideally, AI should handle and improve mundane tasks like replying to emails so that when I sit down with you, I don’t have to respond to emails, I can have a heart-to-heart conversation with you.”
Miller suggests that creative roles in the hospitality industry, particularly chefs, are less susceptible to AI than more mundane roles. Drawing comparisons to discussions in the music, arts and entertainment industries, he says AI currently struggles to replicate truly creative human work, but could expose mediocre work. [something is] Doesn’t mean it was created by humans [it is] Creative. “More mundane cooking tasks, such as “flipping a burger or making a pizza,” may eventually be automated, but when it comes to creating truly innovative and creative dishes, AI is “not there yet,” he says.
transaction
“Practical jobs such as bricklaying and carpentry offer career opportunities.”
Brian Berry, CEO of the Federation of Master Builders, said AI is starting to reshape parts of the construction sector, but the impact will not be uniform.
“On-site jobs such as bricklaying, carpentry and plastering are less affected by AI and continue to offer strong long-term career opportunities,” he says, adding that this is especially true if you work for a local small business.
Large projects could be affected in the future as some practical transactions will be automated, he said, but implementation is still a long way off.
White-collar and administrative jobs have been hit, including planning and estimating jobs. He said he hoped more people would recognize the value that hands-on trades such as local builders working on extensions can offer.
But “awareness remains a challenge,” he says. According to the federation’s survey, fewer than half of parents (47%) would encourage their children to work in the construction industry. “That has to change,” Berry says. “With the increasing demand for skilled trades and the resilience of these roles in the face of AI, construction offers a rewarding and promising career path that more people should consider.”
banking and finance
“The demand for data scientists and AI engineers will increase.”
Tomasz Noetzel, senior banking analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said the jobs most affected by AI in the banking industry are likely to be “call centers, customer service staff, middle-office operations teams, retail store employees, and IT support departments.”
These jobs involve a large amount of repetitive tasks, which can increasingly be handled by AI-powered assistants. “That doesn’t mean these jobs will disappear overnight,” he added.
“Demand for data scientists, AI engineers, software developers, etc. will increase, and banks are expecting growth in technology and data-related roles. Customers are looking for up-to-date information on their investment portfolios that can be enabled with AI.”
“Although there will be very few people whose banking operations will not be affected, the role of high judgment professionals appears to be relatively resilient,” Notzel said. In a survey of European banks conducted by Bloomberg Intelligence, respondents considered “research analysts, compliance and surveillance analysts, risk modelers, and internal auditors to be the least exposed roles. AI is also increasingly used in credit underwriting, but banks continue to emphasize human oversight.”
