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Whether employees are worried about losing their jobs to AI depends largely on their knowledge of artificial intelligence – and on the extent to which their work can be digitalised. This is one of the findings of the latest AI Monitor published by TU Darmstadt, based on a representative survey of more than 2,000 people conducted in cooperation with the market research and polling institute YouGov.
According to the study, respondents’ affinity with AI is the factor most strongly associated with fear of job loss: The better people understand how artificial intelligence works and what it is already capable of, the more concerned they are about coming under pressure at work because of AI or even losing their jobs. Almost half of those with very good knowledge of AI (around 43 per cent) expect that AI could soon take over their work.
“This is a remarkable and, at the same time, worrying finding,” says project leader Peter Buxmann, Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Law and Economics at TU Darmstadt. “Many debates are based on the assumption that concerns are primarily the result of a lack of information. However, this does not appear to be the case: Those who understand AI best are also the most aware of its disruptive potential.”
The data also show that the industry in which people work is not the decisive factor when it comes to concerns about job loss. What matters more is whether the results of their work can be digitalised. People who primarily produce texts, analyses, reports, presentations, computer code or other digital outputs are significantly more concerned than those whose work relies more heavily on physical presence.
“This applies to most industries and is also understandable,” explains Buxmann. “Lawyers, software developers and social media experts are simply much more affected by the GenAI revolution than tradespeople or nurses.”
Further key findings from the study:
• AI has become part of everyday life, but not for everyone. Typical users are young, well educated and predominantly male.
• Germany has an AI training gap: Only 15 per cent of respondents have participated in AI training so far.
• Real-world risks such as hallucinations and data protection risks are the greatest concerns among respondents. By contrast, only four in ten participants consider the emergence of a future superintelligence likely.
• Younger people are more concerned about their jobs than older people. Overall, concerns about job security increased across all occupational groups compared with 2025.
Regarding fears of job losses due to AI, Buxmann said that while generative AI would also create new types of work, it would probably not do so on anything close to the scale at which jobs would disappear. He stressed that the debate was not purely economic: “People who lose their jobs do not just lose their income, but often also a degree of social participation and personal orientation,” he said. “Companies and policymakers need to respond to these concerns not with reassurance, but with training and honest answers to the questions facing the world of work tomorrow.”
KI-Monitor 2026: https://www.is.tu-darmstadt.de/media/bwl5_is/institute/260817_KI-Monitor_final_2...
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