Davos 2026: Andrew Ng says AI-driven job losses have been overstated

AI pioneer Andrew Ng at the World Economic Forum Davos 2026 on January 19

Fears of widespread job losses due to artificial intelligence have been overhyped, AI researcher and entrepreneur Andrew Ng has sadi, adding the technology is still far from replacing most human roles in full.

Speaking to Moneycontrol at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 19, Ng said recent layoffs in the technology sector are often incorrectly attributed to AI.

"Job loss related to AI to date has been overhyped," he said, while pointing out that many job cuts were a result of overhiring during the pandemic years.

Ng, who is the founder of DeepLearning.AI, managing general partner at AI Fund and co-founder of Coursera, said the real impact of artificial intelligence is better understood by breaking jobs into individual tasks.

"For many jobs, AI can only do 30–40 per cent of the work now and for the foreseeable future," he said. "That means we still need people to do 60–70 percent of the work."

The consequence will not be unemployment but rising productivity gaps, Ng said. Workers who effectively use AI tools will increasingly replace those who do not.

"A person that uses AI will be so much more productive, they will replace someone that doesn't use AI," he said.

Ng did acknowledge that a small number of professions face sharper disruption. For instance, contact centre roles, translators and voice actors, he said. "These jobs will struggle," Ng said, but he stressed that they represent a minority.

Overall, the labour impact of AI would be more nuanced than current narratives, he said and stressed that the bigger challenge lay in ensuring workers adapt quickly to AI.