15 Jobs AI Could Replace or Change by 2035

2. Telemarketers

Cold-calling customers is another area where automation has already been developing for years.

AI can potentially:

• Dial numbers
• Identify responses
• Follow conversation scripts
• Answer common questions
• Schedule appointments
• Transfer calls
• Record conversations
• Analyze customer responses

The BLS currently projects telemarketer employment to decline 21.4% between 2025 and 2035.

AI voice technology could put additional pressure on highly repetitive outbound calling.

However, complex sales conversations still require persuasion, judgment, relationship building and trust.

The future may look less like:

Human calls → human conversation

and more like:

AI handles initial contact → human handles qualified prospects.

Risk factor: Very high for routine calling

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3. Telephone Operators and Switchboard Operators

This may sound like an old-fashioned career, but it illustrates an important principle.

The BLS projects:

• Telephone operators: −27.6%
• Switchboard operators: −26.0%

between 2025 and 2035.

Automated phone systems, virtual assistants and AI voice agents can increasingly handle basic requests.

Instead of:

"Please hold while I connect you."

the system can identify what the caller wants and route the call automatically.

The lesson isn't just about telephone operators.

It's about any job where the primary function is routing information from one place to another.

Risk factor: Very high

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4. Cashiers

Walk into a modern store and you can already see the transition.

Self-checkout machines.

Mobile payments.

Digital receipts.

Computer vision.

Automated checkout systems.

The BLS projects approximately 200,600 fewer cashier jobs between 2025 and 2035, a decline of about 6.5%.

That doesn't mean cashiers will disappear.

Stores still need people for:

• Customer assistance
• Age verification
• Problem solving
• Security
• Returns
• Special situations

But the number of workers required to process ordinary transactions can decrease when technology handles more of the transaction.

Risk factor: High

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5. General Office Clerks

General office clerks perform many tasks that involve organizing information and completing routine administrative work.

Examples include:

• Preparing documents
• Filing information
• Answering routine inquiries
• Maintaining records
• Processing paperwork

BLS projects general office clerk employment to decline 6% from 2025 to 2035, representing approximately 156,200 fewer jobs.

The BLS specifically points to technology that automates document preparation and clerical tasks, including automated phone systems and electronic filing systems.

AI adds another layer.

A modern AI assistant can draft documents, summarize correspondence, classify information and answer routine questions.

The result could be an office where one employee supported by AI performs work that previously required several employees.

Risk factor: High

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6. Customer Service Representatives

This may be one of the most visible transformations.

Customer service has traditionally required people to answer questions such as:

• "Where is my order?"
• "How do I reset my password?"
• "Can I return this?"
• "What is your cancellation policy?"
• "When will my package arrive?"

AI chatbots can already handle many questions of this type.

The BLS projects customer service representative employment to decline approximately 5.3% between 2025 and 2035, or about 142,000 fewer jobs.

But this doesn't mean customer service disappears.

Instead, we may see a division:

AI handles:

Routine questions Order status Basic troubleshooting Scheduling Simple account requests

Humans handle:

Angry customers Complex problems Exceptions Negotiations Sensitive situations High-value customers

The human job may become more specialized.

Risk factor: High for routine support

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7. Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

This is one of the occupations most directly exposed to AI because many administrative tasks are highly digital.

An AI assistant can potentially:

• Schedule meetings
• Draft emails
• Summarize meetings
• Organize documents
• Create agendas
• Prepare reports
• Manage reminders
• Search files
• Transcribe conversations

BLS projects employment for secretaries and administrative assistants—excluding legal, medical and executive assistants—to decline approximately 6% between 2025 and 2035.

But administrative professionals who develop strong technology, organizational and interpersonal skills may find their roles changing rather than disappearing.

The future administrative professional may spend less time typing and more time coordinating people, projects and decisions.

Risk factor: High for routine administrative work

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8. Bookkeeping, Accounting and Auditing Clerks

Accounting isn't disappearing.

But some traditional accounting tasks are becoming increasingly automated.

Software can already:

• Import transactions
• Categorize expenses
• Match payments
• Generate reports
• Send invoices
• Reconcile accounts
• Flag unusual transactions

BLS projects employment of bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks to decline approximately 5.6% between 2025 and 2035.

This is an important distinction:

Accounting professionals aren't necessarily disappearing.

Routine transaction processing is becoming easier to automate.

That could increase the value of professionals who understand:

• Financial analysis
• Tax strategy
• Auditing
• Business decisions
• Compliance
• Financial planning

Risk factor: Moderate to high for routine bookkeeping

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9. Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks

Payroll is another highly structured process.

Employees work.

Hours are recorded.

Taxes are calculated.

Payments are generated.

Records are maintained.

Much of that workflow can be standardized.

BLS projects payroll and timekeeping clerk employment to decline approximately 15.9% between 2025 and 2035.

AI and automation could make payroll systems increasingly capable of identifying errors, processing information and generating reports.

However, companies will still need people who understand payroll regulations, exceptions and compliance.

Risk factor: High

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10. Bank Tellers

Banking has already undergone a major technological transformation.

Customers can:

• Deposit checks using smartphones
• Transfer money online
• Pay bills electronically
• Deposit cash at ATMs
• Open accounts digitally
• Communicate with banks through apps

The BLS projects teller employment to decline approximately 13.2% between 2025 and 2035.

AI may accelerate this transition by handling routine customer interactions.

But branches may still need humans for:

• Complex financial questions
• Relationship management
• Business customers
• Fraud situations
• Large transactions
• Customers who prefer human assistance

Risk factor: High

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11. Order Clerks

Order clerks traditionally receive and process customer orders.

But modern e-commerce systems can increasingly allow customers to enter orders directly.

AI can also help interpret:

• Emails
• Purchase orders
• Product requests
• Customer messages

BLS projects order clerk employment to decline approximately 17.5% between 2025 and 2035.

This is another example of an occupation where technology doesn't necessarily need to replace every worker.

It simply needs to reduce the amount of manual processing required.

Risk factor: High

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12. Claims Adjusters

Insurance claims involve evaluating information, documents, photographs and damage.

That creates opportunities for AI.

Imagine uploading photographs of a damaged vehicle.

Computer vision can analyze the images.

AI can estimate damage.

Software can compare the claim with policy information.

The system can flag suspicious claims.

A human can then review unusual or complicated cases.

BLS projects claims adjusters, examiners and investigators to decline about 5.5% between 2025 and 2035.

This doesn't mean human claims professionals disappear.

It means technology may reduce the amount of routine work each employee needs to perform.

Risk factor: Moderate

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13. Printing and Prepress Jobs

Digital documents have already transformed the printing industry.

AI introduces another layer of automation.

The World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report identifies printing-related occupations among the roles expected to decline through 2030, with AI and information-processing technologies, digital access and automation among the drivers identified by employers.

The broader lesson is powerful:

When information becomes digital, jobs built primarily around physically processing that information can become vulnerable.

Risk factor: High in routine printing-related work

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14. Some Writing and Content Production Jobs

This is where the conversation becomes more complicated.

AI can already generate:

• Product descriptions
• Basic articles
• Marketing emails
• Summaries
• Social-media captions
• Advertising variations
• Routine reports

That doesn't mean writers are going away.

But it may reduce demand for people whose work consists primarily of producing large quantities of predictable text.

The World Economic Forum's 2025 report identified graphic designers as newly appearing among roles expected to decline, although U.S. BLS projections are more moderate: graphic designer employment is projected to grow 2.1% from 2025 to 2035.

That disagreement is important.

It demonstrates why headlines such as "AI will eliminate all writers and designers" are too simplistic.

The more likely scenario is that AI changes what employers expect one professional to accomplish.

Risk factor: Moderate, highly dependent on specialization

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15. Some Software Development Tasks

Here's the surprising one.

Many people assume software developers are protected from AI because they're the people building AI.

But software development is actually one of the areas where AI is being used heavily.

AI can help developers:

• Generate code
• Debug programs
• Explain code
• Write tests
• Convert code between languages
• Create documentation
• Build prototypes

Anthropic's Economic Index found that AI usage in its analyzed data was especially concentrated in computer and mathematical tasks, including software development. Its analysis found that AI use leaned somewhat more toward augmentation than automation, meaning humans were often working with AI rather than being completely replaced.

And BLS currently projects software developer employment to grow 15.8% between 2024 and 2034, adding more than 267,000 jobs.

So what's happening?

The profession isn't simply disappearing.

The productivity of an individual developer may increase.

That could eventually change how many developers companies need for certain types of projects while simultaneously increasing demand for people who can build and supervise increasingly sophisticated systems.

Risk factor: High task exposure, but current U.S. employment projections still show strong growth

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The Bigger Pattern: AI Replaces Tasks Before It Replaces Jobs

This may be the most important idea in the entire discussion.

A job is usually not one task.

It's a collection of tasks.

Consider an administrative assistant.

Their day might include:

30% scheduling

20% email

15% document preparation

10% data entry

10% customer communication

15% unexpected problems

AI might eventually automate much of the first four categories.

But the remaining work could still require a human.

That's why the ILO says most occupations are more likely to experience transformation rather than complete redundancy.

The future may therefore look less like:

Human → replaced by robot

and more like:

5 humans + AI → doing the work previously performed by 8 humans

That distinction could have enormous consequences for workers.

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The Jobs That May Be More Resistant to AI

If you're choosing a career for the coming decade, another question matters:

Which types of work are harder to automate?

Jobs may be more resistant when they require combinations of:

1. Human trust

People may still want humans involved in sensitive decisions.

2. Physical dexterity

AI software cannot easily perform physical work in the real world without robotics.

3. Complex interpersonal relationships

Negotiation, leadership, counseling and relationship management can be difficult to automate.

4. Responsibility and accountability

Some decisions require a human who is legally or professionally responsible for the outcome.

5. Unpredictable environments

A controlled digital environment is easier to automate than a constantly changing physical environment.

6. High-stakes judgment

Medicine, engineering, law, finance and other fields can involve consequences that make human oversight especially important.

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The Interesting Part: Some Jobs May Actually Grow Because of AI

AI isn't only a job destroyer.

It's also creating demand.

The latest BLS projections list occupations such as:

• Data scientists
• Information security analysts
• Computer and information research scientists
• Software developers
• Operations research analysts

among technology-related occupations with strong projected growth.

BLS's latest 2025–2035 projections also show particularly strong growth for nurse practitioners, solar photovoltaic installers, data scientists, wind turbine service technicians and information security analysts.

The World Economic Forum similarly expects AI and machine-learning specialists, big-data specialists and software developers to be among the fastest-growing roles globally through 2030.

So the labor market may not simply become smaller.

It may become different.

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What should workers do now?

If you want a practical starting point, read our guides to turning existing skills into AI-assisted income and building more than one income stream with AI. The goal is not to chase every new tool; it is to strengthen a skill people already value.

If your job contains many repetitive, predictable tasks, don't wait until AI is doing the work before learning how to work with it.

Start now.

Learn to use AI in your profession

Don't simply ask:

"Will AI replace my job?"

Ask:

"How can I become the person who knows how to use AI better than everyone else in my department?"

That can be a much more productive question.

Learn:

• AI assistants
• Automation tools
• Data analysis
• Prompting
• Digital workflows
• Industry-specific AI tools
• Cybersecurity basics
• Communication
• Critical thinking

The World Economic Forum reports that employers expect AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity, and technological literacy to be among the fastest-growing skill areas through 2030.

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The Most Valuable Worker May Not Be the One Who Competes With AI

It may be the person who knows how to direct it.

Imagine two employees.

Employee A

Does everything manually.

Employee B

Uses AI to automate routine work, checks the results, solves difficult problems and spends more time on high-value tasks.

If both employees have similar salaries, which worker can potentially produce more?

That's the economic question businesses will increasingly face.

AI could therefore create a new competitive advantage:

AI + Human Judgment

Not simply:

AI vs. Humans

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Final Thought

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming the future of work will be divided into two groups:

People whose jobs AI destroys

and

people whose jobs AI cannot touch.

The reality will probably be much messier.

Some occupations will shrink.

Some will grow.

Some will disappear.

Many will be redesigned.

And entirely new occupations will emerge.

The ILO's research makes this point clearly: exposure to generative AI is widespread, but exposure does not automatically mean job loss.

The workers who may face the greatest pressure are likely to be those whose jobs consist largely of routine, predictable, digital tasks.

The workers who may have more protection are those who combine technology with human judgment, relationships, physical skills, creativity, responsibility and specialized expertise.

So don't ask only:

"Will AI take my job?"

Ask the question that may matter much more:

"What can I learn today that AI will make more valuable tomorrow?"

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Sources & References

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employment Projections and Occupational Outlook Handbook
• International Labour Organization — Generative AI and Jobs: A 2025 Update
• International Labour Organization — The Impact of GenAI on Jobs, Productivity and Work Organization
• World Economic Forum — Future of Jobs Report 2025
• Anthropic — Anthropic Economic Index

This article discusses labor-market projections and research. Projections are not guarantees of future employment outcomes.