50% of White-Collar Jobs at Risk? Anthropic Is Funding the Research to Find Out
Explore Anthropic’s $15M Economic Futures Program, a bold initiative to understand and mitigate AI’s impact on jobs, unemployment, and the global economy.
The rise of artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, economies, and the fabric of everyday life. But as with any powerful new technology, it raises urgent questions: Who will benefit? How can we avoid amplifying inequality? And what kind of future are we building?
Anthropic, one of the leading voices in AI safety and alignment, has launched a bold new initiative to address those questions head-on: the Economic Futures Program. This initiative deserves the attention of every technologist, policymaker, and business leader—not only because of its ideals, but because of its practical promise for humanity’s economic well-being.
What Is the Economic Futures Program?
Launched in June 2025, Anthropic’s Economic Futures Program is a $15 million research initiative designed to explore the economic and societal impacts of frontier AI systems. In collaboration with top economists, labor experts, and social scientists, the program funds independent research that tackles questions like:
- How will advanced AI affect productivity and wages?
- What are the implications for labor markets, automation, and education?
- How can we create economic policies that ensure shared prosperity?
Anthropic has committed to transparency, openness, and the academic freedom of participating researchers. The goal is to generate robust, empirical insights that can inform policy, guide innovation, and spark public dialogue.
Addressing Unemployment and Job Displacement
Perhaps the most urgent concern about AI’s rise is its potential to displace human workers. From customer service to coding to logistics, AI agents are increasingly capable of automating tasks that once required skilled labor. While this promises efficiency, it also introduces the risk of widespread job loss—particularly in industries where routine cognitive work dominates.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued a stark warning: AI could eliminate up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years, potentially pushing US unemployment rates to 20%. What’s particularly interesting is that unlike other massive tech shifts we’ve experienced over the past 150 years, blue collar workers are less likely to be impacted by the AI tech shift. Even stranger, the people that are at risk for job loss are the people making the technology—people working in coding, engineering, and tech.
The Economic Futures Program aims to directly address this challenge by funding research that helps forecast exactly where and how displacement may occur, not just in broad sectors, but within specific job categories and demographics. Right now, it’s not crystal clear where exactly job loss is happening, even if there are vague ideas that it is, indeed happening. We need clear data on this, which the Economics Futures Program is tasked with getting.
This research will also identify which roles are most likely to be augmented vs. replaced. This helps workers and employers plan more intelligently, as well as college students, high school graduates, and people early in their careers who are wondering where they should be focusing their time and studies as they enter the job market. Businesses and individuals will also have better insight into the ripple effects of job loss in one sector, and how it might affect demand and opportunity in another.With this data, we can design targeted policy interventions, such as wage subsidies, retraining programs, universal basic income pilots, or educational reforms.
By grounding these projections in rigorous economic modeling rather than hype, panic, or speculation, the program provides a data-driven foundation for real solutions. It shifts the conversation from anxiety to agency (pun intended)—equipping governments, businesses, and communities to act before disruption reaches critical mass.
This program isn’t about resisting automation or doubling back on AI advancements—it’s about managing new technology responsibly, with human dignity and data-driven policy at the center.
Why It’s Good for Business
For businesses—especially those integrating AI agents into operations—the research produced by the Economic Futures Program could be a game changer. Understanding the macroeconomic impacts of AI adoption means:
- Better workforce planning: Knowing which jobs will transform (or disappear) allows companies to reskill, upskill, and prepare.
Smarter policy engagement: As governments respond with taxes, incentives, and regulations, being ahead of the curve could protect bottom lines. - More responsible product design: Companies can design AI systems that augment human work, not replace it wholesale—driving both impact and trust.
- A more psychologically safe workforce: Helping people understand the role AI will play in their jobs in the short- and long-term—particularly for companies that are mandating AI adoption in their workforce—gives people the information they need to understand the impact of AI on their jobs and where they might augment their skills for better longevity.
In a world where consumers and regulators increasingly demand social responsibility, supporting these values isn’t just ethical—it’s strategic.
Why It’s Good for Humanity
The real promise of the Economic Futures Program lies in its orientation toward human flourishing. It aligns with the core principles many of us in the AI world share but often struggle to operationalize:
- Technology should expand opportunity, not shrink it.
- Economic growth should be inclusive and sustainable.
- The benefits of intelligence—artificial or otherwise—should be shared.
By investing in forward-looking, evidence-based policy frameworks, Anthropic is laying groundwork for a future where AI enhances—not erodes—the dignity of work, the stability of markets, and the social contract itself.
A Model for Others to Follow
The Economic Futures Program also sets a compelling precedent. It shows that major AI labs can do more than build models—they can help build societies that thrive alongside those models. As AI agents become embedded in business processes, government systems, and consumer apps, this kind of multidisciplinary, proactive thinking will be essential.
We hope to see other labs, startups, and public institutions launch similar programs. And at Agent.ai, we’re committed to integrating the insights such research yields into the very fabric of how we design, deploy, and govern intelligent agents.
AI doesn’t have to be a force of disruption alone. With care, foresight, and collaboration, it can also be a force for stability, equity, and shared prosperity. By investing in deep research on unemployment and displacement, this program helps us look squarely at the hardest problems, while still building with optimism.
