AI Agents and the Labor Market: Which IT Professions Are at Risk in 2026

By 2026, artificial intelligence agents have become part of the daily work of technology companies. There is already enough data to understand how this is changing employment — especially in areas where young IT specialists used to start their careers.

How many jobs will disappear and how many will appear

According to The Future of Jobs Report 2025 from the World Economic Forum, by 2030, 92 million jobs will disappear, and 170 million will appear — a net increase of 7%, or about 78 million jobs. The survey involved more than 1,000 large employers representing over 14 million employees worldwide. 86% of them named the development of artificial intelligence and information processing as a transformative factor for business.

Demand is growing fastest for Big Data specialists, FinTech engineers, AI and machine learning specialists, software developers, and security specialists. Meanwhile, clerical positions, cashiers, administrative assistants, and data entry specialists are declining.

Who loses jobs first

Stanford Digital Economy Lab studied data on millions of workers in the US and found no mass layoffs due to artificial intelligence. However, there is a gap: employment among 22–25-year-old specialists in the most automatable professions lags behind the employment of their peers in less vulnerable professions — by 19% as of June 2026, and by 15% a year earlier. Experienced workers do not have such a gap.

The issue is not layoffs, but hiring — young people are simply hired less often. It is worst where artificial intelligence replaces humans rather than assists them — software development and customer support are exactly in this category.

The explanation lies in the type of knowledge. Codified knowledge, everything that can be written down in documentation, is easily copied by artificial intelligence, and most juniors' work is built on it. Tacit knowledge, which is gained only through practice, is still beyond its capabilities — and this is an advantage for experienced specialists.

Which IT professions are at the highest risk

Artificial intelligence targets tasks, not entire professions. At risk are:

— junior development — routine tasks of writing and debugging code
— testing on standard scenarios
— first-line technical support
— data entry and processing.

All these tasks are digital, text-based, and easily described by rules — which means they can be easily transferred to artificial intelligence agents.

Which professions are growing

Demand is growing for AI and machine learning specialists, big data engineers, and cybersecurity specialists. The role of experienced developers is also changing — they write code less often themselves and increasingly act as architects and reviewers of agents' work.

World Economic Forum notes that about three-quarters of executives expect restructuring specifically at the entry-level career stage — almost twice as often as for middle and senior levels. At the same time, experienced developers most often cite critical thinking as the main quality for juniors, rather than proficiency in artificial intelligence tools — 25% versus 18%. Juniors themselves think similarly: 48% of respondents chose analytical thinking as the main skill, compared to 18% for proficiency in tools.

What this means for specialists

Artificial intelligence replaces not professions, but tasks that are easy to formalize. Value is shifting from writing code to understanding context and the ability to direct the work of artificial intelligence. Professions that rely on judgment, responsibility for results, and experience that cannot be described in an instruction remain resilient.