The report, Experimental Estimates of Potential Artificial Intelligence Occupational Exposure in Canada, highlights that AI differs from previous waves of technological transformation that mostly impacted less educated workers performing routine and manual tasks.

For example, the study estimates that, in May 2021, 50% of workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher held jobs highly exposed to and highly complementary with AI.

It puts Canadian workers into three categories:

• those whose jobs are highly exposed to AI and who might benefit from it because of a high degree of complementarity between their tasks and AI capabilities
• those whose jobs are highly exposed to AI and whose tasks might be replaced by AI
• those whose jobs are not highly exposed to AI

For the finance workers at high exposure, there is also low complementarity. Others in this category include salespersons in retail and wholesale trade, computer and IT professionals, and office support and co-ordination occupations.

However, Statistics Canada urges caution in interpreting the real world outcome of AI exposure, which could change as technology evolves.