Despite vast uncertainty about the impacts of AI on work and the economy, action is needed now to ensure that the economic gains AI creates translate into inclusive growth for workers, businesses, and communities across the country. The decisions being made, or deferred, now—about the development of the technology, its adoption and use, and the policy context into which it is being deployed—will be critical. This paper provides a blueprint for building the inclusive AI economy that workers deserve and building the evidence needed to make it a reality.

The Vision for an Inclusive AI Economy

In an inclusive AI economy,

1. workers have the skills they need to thrive as AI changes jobs;
2. workers have high-quality jobs in an AI-powered workplace;
3. workers are economically secure during the AI transition and beyond; and
4. innovation in AI empowers workers and drives inclusive economic growth.

What It Will Take to Build an Inclusive AI Economy

Below, we identify key actors and critical questions they must answer for each of the four elements of an inclusive AI economy.

1. Workers Have the Skills They Need to Thrive as AI Changes Jobs

The changing demand for skills is one of the most consequential of AI's impact on workers. Issues include the near-term challenge of preparing workers for jobs that are changing now and the longer-term question of how education and training systems need to pivot going forward.

Identify and build the skills workers need. Workers who cannot access the skills that AI-era jobs demand are at risk of being left behind. Education and training institutions, workforce development systems, and employers will need to understand what skills will confer advantage and resilience for workers in the AI economy, and consider how to adapt K–12, postsecondary, and workforce training systems in response.

Match workers to goods jobs. AI is transforming how workers search for jobs and how employers hire. To help workers match with good jobs and enable firms to find their best-fit workers in the age of AI, employers, industry partners, workforce development practitioners, technologists, and researchers will need to learn which AI-enabled tools best match workers with quality jobs, and whether these tools have effects on labor markets more widely.

2. Workers Have High Quality Jobs in an AI-Powered Workplace

The quality of work—not just its availability—is at stake in the AI transition. It will be determined by how employers implement AI, how workers and their representatives shape those choices, and how governments set the boundaries within which both can act.

Encourage inclusive implementation of AI in workplace. Employers have choices about how to introduce AI in the workplace. To ensure AI adoption best serves both workers and firms, employers and industry partners will need to learn which AI-related practices are associated with positive worker outcomes, and consider where worker and employer interests align, and where they are in tension.

Incorporate worker voice. Including workers in decisions about how firms adopt AI tools is critical for maximizing productivity and minimizing workforce disruptions in the AI transition. Advocates, employers, and policymakers will need to consider which forms of worker representation are most effective at ensuring AI adoption supports both productivity and job quality.

Update labor market policies for the AI era. The impacts of AI on work will be governed by the public policies that establish the basic rules for how labor markets operate and what work is like on the job. To update labor market policies for the AI era, policymakers, labor law scholars, and researchers will need to identify the issues that can be addressed by current policy, and what new frameworks are needed.

3. Workers Are Economically Secure in the AI Transition and Beyond

To support all workers as AI changes work and the economy, we need new approaches both to mitigate the negative economic consequences of the technological transition, and to ensure that the gains from AI will be broadly shared over the long term.

Support displaced workers. Job loss due to technological advances such as AI can leave workers with significant losses in income, both in the near and long term. Policymakers will need to consider reforms to income supports, identifying where current policy can be effectively adapted and what new policies are needed.

Ensure broad-based prosperity in the AI economy. AI could drive substantial productivity gains, but those benefits may flow primarily to business owners and shareholders. To promote broadly shared prosperity from AI, policymakers and researchers will need to study where the gains from AI go, and consider which policy levers are available to ensure gains are shared.

4. Innovation in AI Empowers Workers and Drives Inclusive Growth

Policy choices and the priorities of key actors can shape the direction of AI innovation. Whether AI is designed and deployed primarily to replace workers or to empower them depends on decisions made by policymakers, funders, and technologists today.

Use innovation policy to incentivize AI that empowers workers. To incentivize the development of AI technologies that benefit everyone, policymakers, technology firms, researchers, and funders will need to consider how to develop a new, integrated science and technology policy orientation toward funding and encouraging pro-worker forms of AI.

Invest in research institutions that serve the public good. Some of the most broadly shared economic advances in American history trace back to university labs and publicly funded research. To ensure that publicly supported institutions are involved in the AI transition, researchers, funders, and policymakers will need to consider how US institutions of higher learning are utilizing and developing AI now, and how this model could be reinvigorated.