Nearly two years after ChatGPT first greeted users with “Hello! How can I assist you today?”, most Canadians worry that the newest wave of artificial intelligence (AI) will displace human workers. In a February Leger survey, 75% of respondents expressed this concern. While many see AI as useful, there is a strong perception that it poses a real threat to jobs across the Canadian economy.
Robert Furtado, CEO of education marketplace CourseCompare, warns that AI presents the greatest risk to roles that involve highly specialized, repetitive tasks. Examples include reviewing legal documents or financial statements, responding to routine customer inquiries, or interpreting medical images. In countries such as South Africa and India, low-paid content creators have already faced major disruption as generative models like ChatGPT and Perplexity entered the market.
“Every field will feel the impact of AI in some way,” says Aaron Genest, senior applications engineering manager at Siemens Canada.
That said, AI’s progress does not automatically mean professions like accounting, customer service, or marketing will disappear. Experts distinguish between AI replacing complete jobs versus automating specific tasks. Most modern roles require a mix of skills—communication, judgment, creativity and relationship building—that current AI systems can’t fully replicate. For instance, a tool can draft a sales cover letter, but it cannot reliably grow a company’s sales pipeline on its own.
Will AI make my job obsolete?
For most workers, the answer is no. Certain positions—such as data entry clerks and some administrative assistants—face higher risk because AI can process large volumes of structured data quickly. Still, labour-market specialists generally do not expect a wholesale replacement of Canadian workers. Human employees are better at integrating diverse skills and adapting to changing contexts.
“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, many Canadian employers add AI as a supporting layer to employees’ workflows rather than using it to eliminate jobs. Even roles that involve routine information retrieval, like reading scans or researching precedents, are more likely to be augmented than fully automated.
Furtado adds that “many specialized skills will remain valuable, but AI will increase demand for people who can apply those skills creatively, exercise sound judgment, think critically and communicate well within teams.”
Below is a sector-by-sector look at how AI is being adopted across Canada and what it means for workers.
AI in real estate
Canada’s real estate, rental and leasing sector generated about $295 billion in output last year, according to Statistics Canada, and employs roughly 350,000 people, including agents, mortgage brokers, data entry clerks and property assessors. While AI doesn’t change the core client-facing tasks of most real estate professionals, it speeds research, automates routine content generation and helps extract property details for better decision-making.
“Real estate organizations use AI to understand management requirements and pull specific property information so they can act faster and more accurately,” Galea explains.
AI in banking
The banking sector employs roughly 280,000 Canadians and contributes about $70 billion to GDP, according to the Canadian Bankers Association. Banks have already leaned into AI for fraud detection, risk mitigation and customer service—chatbots have handled hundreds of thousands of inquiries in recent years. AI also enables more personalized financial planning and automated investment advice, potentially expanding access beyond wealthy clients.
Banks typically hire AI specialists for their IT teams, while roles in customer service, fraud analysis and financial planning increasingly incorporate AI tools that assist with routine work and analysis.
AI in the oil and gas industry
The energy sector accounted for roughly 11.8% of Canada’s GDP in 2022 and directly employed about 73,000 people. Although the industry can seem traditional in approach, many oil and gas companies have long used AI to predict maintenance needs, optimize operations and improve safety by analyzing data from advanced sensors.
By combining AI with richer sensor data, producers can identify signals that indicate potential equipment failures and plan maintenance proactively, improving uptime and reducing costs.
AI in the automotive sector
Canada’s automotive industry contributed about $12.5 billion to GDP in 2020 and provides hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs. AI helps automakers design and build vehicles more efficiently, manage workflows and maintenance schedules, detect defective parts and support the development of autonomous driving technologies.
AI is already reshaping manufacturing and retail operations across the automotive supply chain, and it will remain central to the transition toward connected and self-driving vehicles.
AI uses in healthcare
Healthcare represents a significant portion of Canada’s economy and workforce. AI is being explored to ease staffing pressures, provide early-warning systems for at-risk patients and estimate emergency-department wait times. However, concerns about privacy, safety and diagnostic accuracy have limited widespread deployment in front-line clinical care.
Where adopted carefully, AI serves as an assistive tool that supports clinical decision-making, triage and administrative efficiency rather than replacing healthcare professionals.
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Is AI good for the Canadian economy?
The broad economic impact of AI is still unfolding. Generative AI is a relatively new technology, and advances are happening quickly. Early analyses suggest AI could deliver significant productivity gains and economic value for Canada. For example, a Google report estimated generative AI alone might add up to $210 billion to the Canadian economy and save the average worker as much as 100 hours per year—hours that employers may redeploy to higher-value activities.
Canada’s AI ecosystem is also expanding. A University of Toronto report found the AI boom has supported thousands of new jobs and attracted substantial investment, driven by a mix of public funding, private venture and homegrown research talent.
Across North America, PwC projects AI could boost GDP by around 14%, primarily through productivity improvements, new AI-driven products and services, and related hardware demand. However, these projections carry uncertainty: regulation, economic cycles and workforce transitions will shape the final outcomes.
The jobs that AI can’t replace
Widespread displacement does not seem inevitable in the near term. McKinsey and other researchers note that jobs requiring unpredictable physical work—plumbing, childcare and gardening, for example—are harder to automate. Similarly, deeply creative roles that demand originality and nuanced human judgment remain difficult for AI to replicate.
Care-based professions like social work, counselling and personal support require empathy, trust and human connection that AI cannot provide. Even when AI supports these roles with information or administrative help, the essential human elements remain indispensable.
Getting a job in AI
The AI expansion is also creating new career paths. Roles such as prompt engineers, AI trainers and ethics specialists are growing as organizations develop, deploy and govern AI systems. Salaries for top AI talent can be substantial, and demand is strong for professionals who can bridge technical expertise with domain knowledge and ethical oversight.
Ethics roles—helping organizations use AI responsibly—are likely to rise in importance. AI trainers and subject-matter experts who can teach models the right context and constraints also play a crucial role in practical deployments.
Working with AI
Staying relevant in the age of AI is less about chasing each new tool and more about cultivating the right mindset and skills. Experts recommend learning to deconstruct problems, sequence questions effectively, and communicate precisely when working with generative systems. These abilities—core to prompt engineering—help users get reliable, useful results from AI.
Furtado emphasizes “intrigued detachment”: treating AI as a tool that can amplify your abilities but not replace foundational human skills. Developing adaptability, critical thinking and collaboration will be more valuable than mastery of any single AI platform.
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