MIT index uncovers hidden AI iceberg impacting workforce

By EngineAI Team | Published on December 3, 2025
MIT index uncovers hidden AI iceberg impacting workforce
Using its "Iceberg Index," a labor simulation that demonstrates AI can perform activities worth 11.7% of U.S. salaries, MIT recently released a research on AI's effects on the workforce. This figure goes beyond the layoffs that make headlines.

The specifics:

The Iceberg Index illustrates the areas where AI capabilities and human job functions overlap by modeling 151 million American workers across 32,000 talents.

While AI has the ability to automate up to $1.2T in administrative and financial tasks, tech layoffs account for only 2.2% of all wage exposure, or around $211 billion.

The largest disparities are found in manufacturing states with low tech-sector effect, where exposure risk is over ten times higher for jobs like finance, logistics, and human resources.

Before committing actual money, states including Tennessee, North Carolina, and Utah are already testing workforce policy scenarios on the platform.

The majority of AI workforce coverage concentrates on layoffs in the tech sector, but this index indicates that the greater exposure may be found in office and professional roles spread throughout all states, not just Silicon Valley. This implies that the issue of job displacement, which many are already warning about, may be far more widespread than previously thought.

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