CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – A new report from Virginia Works suggests the biggest impact artificial intelligence will have on the workforce may not be widespread job loss, but how work itself is done.

The report, Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Virginia’s Workforce, ranks Virginia fifth in the nation for workplace AI adoption and examines how AI is expected to reshape occupations across the Commonwealth. According to the report, AI is most likely to change tasks in professions such as software development, finance, law and writing, where technology can assist with information-based work.

Gaurav Chiplunkar, an assistant professor of economics at the UVA Darden School of Business, said it’s important to think about AI’s impact at the task level rather than assuming entire jobs will disappear.

“We need to look at the task… a job is a combination of different tasks,” Chiplunkar said “AI is enabling certain tasks… and then when you aggregate it up, you can look at a job-level exposure.”

Rather than predicting which jobs will be eliminated, the Virginia Works report focuses on AI exposure—a measure of how much of a person’s work could be assisted or automated by artificial intelligence. The report notes that exposure is not synonymous with job loss and says many workers could instead see increased productivity or spend more time on work requiring human judgment and creativity.

Chiplunkar said preparing the next generation of workers will be critical as AI continues to evolve.

“How are we preparing our 21-year-olds to enter the labor market?” Chiplunkar said. “AI is probably going to give us five years to respond to it… the runway for policymaking is becoming shorter and shorter.”

The report compares the current AI transition to previous technological revolutions, such as the rise of personal computers and the internet. Researchers say those advances displaced some work but also created entirely new careers, and they believe AI could follow a similar path.

Virginia Works encourages people to strengthen both AI literacy and durable human skills, including communication, critical thinking, adaptability and ethical judgment, saying those abilities will become increasingly valuable as AI becomes more common in the workplace. The agency also offers free online AI training resources and Google-backed certificate programs.

Read the full report: Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Virginia’s Workforce

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