Future of work
The gap between public and AI-industry expectations
- Published
- Source
- Anthropic Research
Summary
Anthropic's economics team surveyed roughly 11,000 US adults (fielded by Morning Consult in August 2026, nationally representative) alongside its own staff to compare expectations about AI. While 39% of US adults expect AI to make a Nobel-level discovery by 2030, 91% of staff do; over half of staff expect AI to handle at least 80% of their own work by 2030, versus 5% of US workers. Both groups reason about the labor market similarly: people who expect AI to do more of their own work also expect higher unemployment.
Why it matters for our work
The gap appears to stem from hands-on experience with AI rather than different economic reasoning. When planning or selling AI adoption, building real usage experience may calibrate expectations more effectively than inflated claims.
Translated from the Korean original. Summaries may be translated and edited. Commentary reflects our perspective; forecasts remain the source’s views.