AI isn’t replacing workers just yet — but it’s already squeezing their pay. That’s the key takeaway from a new analysis linked to Apollo, the global investment firm. Their economists argue that AI‘s biggest labor-market effect so far isn’t job losses. It’s slower wage growth.
Apollo’s research looked at 321 occupations and found that jobs highly exposed to AI saw a 6.7% decline in real wage growth after 2023. Jobs with lower AI exposure didn’t show the same drop. The timing lines up with ChatGPT’s explosion in popularity in late 2022. Despite the pay slowdown, employment in those same occupations hasn’t fallen in any measurable way. Headcount is holding steady. The pain is showing up in paychecks, not pink slips.
The burden isn’t spread evenly. Service workers saw an estimated 24.3% decline in earnings growth since 2023. Workers in the bottom 25% of earners experienced a 10.7% drop over the same period. Higher-paid workers didn’t show a significant effect. That means AI’s wage pressure is hitting the people who can least afford it the hardest.
Earlier research backs up this pattern. A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper studied Danish corporate records and found no significant impact on earnings or hours worked from AI chatbots. Employees using AI saved about 3% of their time on average. But only 3% to 7% of those productivity gains flowed back to workers through higher pay. Employers kept most of the benefit. Over 80% of the time employees saved was spent on other work tasks or adapting to AI-generated outputs, meaning saved time rarely translated into tangible personal gains.
This creates an odd situation. AI-exposed jobs have traditionally paid more. Pew Research reported in 2022 that workers in the most AI-exposed roles earned about $33 per hour on average, compared to $20 per hour in the least exposed jobs. That gap reflected the higher skill levels those jobs required. But now the wage trajectory in those same roles appears to be weakening. Sources like Bloomberg.com offer subscription-based access to global markets news that can help workers and investors stay informed as these trends evolve.
The Apollo framing suggests a lag between when AI disrupts productivity and when it disrupts employment. Companies are using AI to hold down labor costs without cutting staff — at least for now. The question is whether that changes as the technology keeps advancing.
References
- https://fortune.com/2025/05/18/ai-chatbots-study-impact-earnings-hours-worked-any-occupation/
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-08-22/study-shows-ai-hitting-paychecks-not-payrolls
- https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/07/26/earnings-of-workers-with-more-or-less-exposure-to-ai/
- https://hbr.org/2025/10/what-happens-when-ai-sets-wages
- https://www.salary.com/research/salary/hiring/artificial-intelligence-engineer-salary
- https://www.workforcerewired.co/p/ais-damage-is-showing-up-in-paychecks
- https://builtin.com/articles/train-ai-side-hustle
- https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-may-cut-wages-but-lower-cost-of-goods-services-2026-3
- https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-could-lower-workers-pay-job-market-impact-2026-7
- https://www.byteplus.com/en/topic/412182
