Nearly two years after ChatGPT asked “Hello! How can I assist you today?”, a majority of Canadians worry the latest wave of artificial intelligence (AI) will replace jobs done by human workers. In a February survey by Leger, 75% of respondents held this view. The overwhelming consensus is that AI, even if it is useful, is a threat to continued employment in the Canadian economy.
Robert Furtado, the CEO of education marketplace CourseCompare, says AI is riskiest for jobs that require highly specialized and repetitive work. That could include reviewing legal documents or a company’s financial updates, answering queries at a customer service desk or even reading X-ray scans. In countries like South Africa and India, low-paid content creators have faced significant hardship thanks to programs like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
“Every field will see the impact of AI in some way,” says Aaron Genest, senior applications engineering manager at Siemens Canada.
But all these AI developments don’t mean accountants, customer service representatives and content marketers are doomed to be unemployable in future. Many AI experts differentiate between AI’s abilities to perform an entire job or a task. Workers often handle a multitude of tasks over the course of a day, from answering emails to inspecting a job site, and AI is still a highly specialized technology. ChatGPT might be able to write a cover letter for a sales position, for example, but it can’t grow a company’s sales numbers.
Will AI make my job obsolete?
Largely, no. While there are some roles, like data entry specialists and office administrators, that are at high risk of replacement by AI because of how quickly it can process large swathes of data, employment experts largely do not see AI putting most Canadian workers out of a job. In their view, humans are better at juggling the many different skills that go into most modern jobs.
“We only see around 10% to 13% of organizations using this to actually replace roles,” says Jason Galea, a director in KPMG’s People and Change Practice. Instead, he says, most Canadian companies that are experimenting with AI incorporate it as a layer into the workload of their existing employees. And this doesn’t just apply to managers or creatives: even jobs involving a lot of rote information retrieval, such as reading medical imaging results or researching legal precedents, are not necessarily on the chopping block.
“Many specialized skills will continue to be valuable to employers, but artificial intelligence will put a premium on people’s ability to apply these different skills creatively, exercise sound judgment, think critically about problems and collaborate and communicate effectively within teams,” Furtado wrote in an email.
Here’s how AI is currently working its way into the largest sectors of the Canadian economy, and what it means for employees.
AI in real estate
Canada’s real estate, rental and leasing sector accounted for a staggering $295 billion in output last year, according to Statistics Canada data, employing around 350,000 people nationwide. These employees include real estate agents, mortgage brokers, data entry clerks and property assessors. Average salaries in the real estate sector vary by position, but real estate agents themselves earn an average of $100,000 a year, according to Talent.ca.
AI doesn’t fundamentally change how most real estate professionals such as real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and assessors deal with customers, but it does serve as a way to quickly conduct research or generate copy. “Real estate organizations are using this to understand property management requirements and extracting details on certain properties so they understand them a little bit better,” Galea says.
AI in banking
Employing around 280,000 Canadians and around 130,000 people overseas, the banking sector contributes about $70 billion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the Canadian Bankers Association. They’re also seriously invested in technological change, including AI. Banks use it to help pinpoint financial fraud within their system, and mitigate financial risk. “They’re also using it for customer service,” he points out. Chatbots like Scotiabank’s have taken questions from hundreds of thousands of users over the past two years.
In the finance world, AI could allow banks to develop personalized financial planning services for customers. While personal financial experts are already available to rich clients, PwC believes robo-advisors could develop customized investment advice to the masses on a scale not currently available.
Many banks already hire dedicated AI professionals for their IT departments, but customer service, fraud detection and financial planning employees may use AI. According to job site Glassdoor, the average bank customer service representative makes about $43,000, while fraud analysts make around $50,000 and financial planners make close to $90,000. By contrast, AI scientists can command average salaries of around $83,000 a year.
AI in the oil and gas industry
Canada’s entire energy sector accounted for around 11.8% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, with Statistics Canada estimating its total direct employment at around 73,000 workers. Although the sector has a reputation for an old-fashioned, pen-and-paper approach to projects, oil companies have used AI for years to anticipate maintenance and improve efficiency.
“By coupling AI with the increased data collection allowed by more sophisticated and plentiful sensors, producers can begin to understand data points that might indicate imminent failure of a piece of equipment,” wrote lawyers Alicia Quesnel and Mike Henry in Financier Worldwide.
The average oil and gas salary in Canada, according to Talent.com, is around $87,000 a year, although positions can start as low as $54,800.
AI in the automotive sector
Canada’s automotive sector brought in a whopping $12.5 billion contribution to the country’s GDP in 2020, according to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and employs around 117,200 people directly. Another 371,000 Canadians work in aftermarket and dealership jobs.
According to Shane Weimar, national automotive retail leader at BDO, AI driven systems can help automakers more efficiently design and build cars. They can also help manage schedules, workflows and maintenance, and help flag defective parts going into cars and trucks, he added. “It’s hard to overstate the impact of AI on the automotive business model,” he said on the company’s Canadian website. AI is also a crucial component of self-driving cars.
Automotive salaries across all positions in Canada average about $45,500 a year, according to Talent.com. Meanwhile, autonomous driving engineer jobs in Canada, based on a survey of Glassdoor postings, can range from $63,000 to around $102,000.
AI uses in healthcare
The Canadian healthcare sector represents around 12.7% of Canada’s GDP, and employs an estimated 2 million workers in 2021 alone. AI is being used to help alleviate staffing shortages following the worst years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is used for everything from an early warning system for at-risk patients to calculating emergency-room wait times. However, privacy and accuracy concerns have made its deployment in front-line care extremely limited.
Healthcare salaries across Canada start at about $56,000 a year, according to Glassdoor, although there is significant variation by expertise.
Is AI good for the Canadian economy?
The full ramifications of AI on the Canadian economy are not entirely clear. Generative AI, in particular, is still in its early stages. And innovations within the AI field are moving at breakneck speed, thanks to the work of major companies like OpenAI. However, it appears as though AI could generate significant economic benefits for Canada and the world.
According to a September report by Google, generative AI alone could add as much as $210 billion to the Canadian economy, and potentially save the average Canadian worker as much as 100 hours of work a year. (That said, experts believe employers will fill these hours with other tasks).
Canada’s AI sector specifically appears to be growing fast, and with it, hiring for AI-related jobs. At a press conference in September, Google Cloud country manager Sam Sebastian told reporters Toronto had the largest concentration of AI startups in the world. A 2023 report from the University of Toronto estimated the AI boom had created as many as 50,000 jobs and generated roughly $3 billion in investments since 2010, thanks to a combination of public and private investment, AI research and the presence of qualified AI talent in Canada.
Across North America, AI is expected to boost GDP by 14%, according to a PwC report. Much of these benefits will come first from the productivity improvements offered by AI in analyzing data or generating content, followed by AI-driven sales. On top of all that, computer hardware companies like Nvidia are reaping unprecedented profits by designing semiconductors capable of handling the colossal demands of an AI program.
That said, these figures should be taken with caution.
The authors of PwC’s report say it is difficult to estimate how AI will affect long-term economic growth amid future regulatory shifts, financial booms and busts. It also remains to be seen how the replacement of workers by AI will affect Canada’s labour market in the long term.
What is clear is that a lot of capital investment is flowing into AI tools and AI firms, and the results will undoubtedly be felt in Canada’s economy for years to come.
The jobs that AI can’t replace
While large-scale economic displacement due to AI doesn’t seem likely in the near future, there are some jobs that may never be fully automated away. McKinsey pointed out in a series of 2017 reports that highly physical jobs—such as plumbers, childcare workers and gardeners—may be more resistant to automation simply because AI would struggle to manage in their unpredictable work environments.
On the other end of the spectrum, highly creative jobs that require originality may also be safe from AI.
As Candy Ho, chair of career development organization CERIC, points out, researchers still need to tell an AI research tool what to do.
“It’s very useful to have AI platforms to give you that head start,” she says, “but you still need a human to do that critical thinking.”
And regardless of AI capabilities, certain jobs just require the human touch. Social workers, counsellors and personal support workers could benefit from AI assistance to learn about their patients, but these professions all still require personal contact in a way that no AI program can currently provide.
According to Talent.com, the average plumber earns about $68,000 a year in Canada, while childcare workers earn about $35,000. Social workers can earn around $70,000, based on Glassdoor data, while counsellors are closer to $60,000, and personal support workers bring home just $54,000 a year.
Getting a job in AI
The current AI boom is also creating plenty of new jobs in tech. Ho points to the rise of prompt engineers and other professionals who train AI chatbots. Salaries for these jobs can be high, with some reports listing annual incomes as high as USD$375,000 thanks to the intense demand for AI talent. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for an AI prompt engineer is closer to $110,000.
With all of the recent breakthroughs around generative AI, Ho suspects ethics professionals are also going to see a lot of openings. “I think there’s going to be a rise in ethics officers who work with organizations, including the government, to help ensure we properly use AI,” she says. “So, for lack of better words, it doesn’t take over humanity.”
According to Talent.com, ethicists (in all fields) make an average of $92,000, although AI ethicists can command salaries above $100,000 a year.
Finally, Ho believes AI trainers will also become more and more important to companies. “These are people who are experts within their industry who have already dabbled with AI, but maybe they were seconded or created jobs for themselves as the leading expert in their discipline and AI—and how to leverage them,” she says.
Working with AI
With all of the AI tools available now and in future, from Bard to the most niche bespoke AI program, it is easy to get lost in everything there is to know about generative AI. But the experts MoneySense spoke to all suggested a willingness to learn and think, rather than running after gimmicks of specific tools like ChatGPT or Bard, is the key to staying relevant in today’s AI race.
“These systems allow you to figure out things relatively quickly, if you ask the right order of questions, and you know how to engage these systems properly,” Galea says. “Users of such systems need to be comfortable with deconstructing problems and sequencing their questions to build their understanding. In addition, the use of precise language is important to minimize any incorrect assumptions GenAI systems can make. These skills are important elements of effective prompt engineering.”
All these soft skills, along with what Furtado calls “intrigued detachment,” are what Canadian job applicants need to consider. Intrigued detachment is understanding that AI is just a tool, he says, and all tools eventually become obsolete. What matters is the intrinsic skills of whoever happens to wield them, and whether their own adaptability transfers over.
“It’s important to separate the tools we use to do our jobs from the foundational capacities we can develop throughout our lives,” he explains. “A carpenter is no less a carpenter for preferring an electric saw to a chisel.”
Read more about careers:
- The best cities in Canada for work for newcomers
- These companies have laid off workers
- Jobs in health care that don’t require an MD
- The best bank accounts for side hustles
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