TDC 058: Bombshell Week in AI

TDC 058: A Bombshell Week in AI and an Eventful Week on the Farm

Microsoft's groundbreaking AI job impact research reveals which careers are most vulnerable.

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Episode Summary: 

In this episode of The Digital Contrarian, host Ryan Levesque breaks down Microsoft's explosive AI job impact research paper analyzing over 200,000 AI interactions. 

You'll discover which jobs are most at risk from AI displacement, learn about satisfaction scores that predict future automation, and hear about Ryan's eventful farm accident that landed him in an ambulance. 

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Question of the Day 🗣️ 

Are there any surprises to you on Microsoft's lists of jobs most and least vulnerable to AI? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Key Take-aways 

• Microsoft analyzed 200,000+ AI interactions to identify vulnerable occupations  
• AI satisfaction scores predict which jobs will be displaced first  
• Tasks people are most satisfied with AI handling face highest displacement risk  
• Healthcare research, legal research, and document editing top the vulnerable list 
• Quality evaluation and client consultation remain AI-resistant tasks  

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Timestamped Outline ⏱️  

00:00 – Bombshell week in AI and farm mishaps 
00:44 – Context: Our Agentic AI intensive 
02:03 – Microsoft's AI job impact research paper 
02:53 – The most revealing data: AI satisfaction scores 
04:14 – Top 40 jobs most vulnerable to AI 
04:22 – Top 40 jobs least vulnerable to AI 
04:41 – How to think about this data strategically 
05:51 – The farm accident that landed me in an ambulance 

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Links & Resources 🔗 

- Get on the waitlist for Return to Real book → https://ryanlevesque.net/return-to-real-book/ 
- Microsoft AI job impact research paper (full study) 
- Chris Ducker interview on Apple Podcasts 
- Chris Ducker interview on Spotify 

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Connect & CTA 🎯 
👉 Enjoyed this? Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 

🎁 Join 100 000+ digital entrepreneurs who get Ryan's "Strategic Insights for Digital Entrepreneurs Who Think Differently" every weekend: https://ryanlevesque.net/join-the-digital-contrarian/

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Credits  
Host: Ryan Levesque  
© 2025 RL & Associates LLC. All rights reserved.

Transcript

A bombshell week in AI and an eventful week on the farm. Look, it's been a bombshell week in AI, and in today's episode of the Digital Contrarian, I'm going to explain why. I'll also explain why I landed in the back of an ambulance, rushed to the ER, and the eventful week on the farm in just a moment. 

But first, if you missed my video from last week, I'm up against a tight deadline right now with my forthcoming book, Return to Real. And because my bandwidth is a bit limited, this video is going to be a bit shorter than past episodes of the Digital Contrarian. That being said, because it was such a big week in the world of AI with a few bombshell announcements, I want to provide a bit of insight into what it all means and how we might interpret this data. 

So here's the context. Earlier this week, I hosted a four-hour agentic AI intensive with Sam Woods for members of my strategic advisory group, Mastermind, and a few paid guests who had joined us for the live session. And Sam joined me up here on the farm where we delivered the session together in person, which was kind of cool, from our 200-year-old farmhouse.

And it was just a cool juxtaposition of the Return to Real and the digital and artificial all at once. This session was all about how to get parts of your business to run autonomously using agentic AI technology, including platforms like Gumloop and N8n, in combination with tools that most of us are familiar with, like Clode and ChatGPT. Now, Sam did an excellent job on the intensive. 

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with an NPS score of 71, which generally is considered to be world-class. And quite ironically, the intensive was right on the heels of OpenAI's release of ChatGPT Agent, which allows you to combine OpenAI's operator, the ability to interact with websites, deep research, i.e. synthesizing complex information, and of course, ChatGPT as your conversational interface. But that's not even why it was such a big week in the world of AI.

It was also a big week for another reason, and that is Microsoft's AI job impact research paper. So in case you missed it, earlier this week, Microsoft released a research paper measuring the occupational implications of AI based on over 200,000 AI interactions over the last year. And in this paper, researchers identified the top 40 jobs most AI-applicable and the top 40 jobs least AI-applicable, meaning which jobs have the highest chance of being replaced and transformed based on people's current use and interaction with AI today. 

Now, I'll share both of these top 40 lists in just a moment. But first, if you read the entire paper from start to finish, there are a few findings that I find even more insightful than the top 40 lists getting all the attention in the news right now, like this table that you see here on the screen. Now, this table identifies the AI tasks that people currently report as being most satisfied and least satisfied with the AI-generated result that they receive. 

Or to think about this another way, you can think about it like this. The stuff that people report as being most satisfied with what AI gives them, i.e. in the green box in the table, is likely to be the work where an AI most quickly displaces the humans performing those tasks today. So, for example, that includes things like researching healthcare issues, researching laws, precedents, or other legal data, and unsurprisingly, editing and writing materials or documents. 

Now, in contrast, the stuff that people report as being least satisfied with what AI gives them in the red box is the stuff for which AI just isn't quite there yet and where an AI is least likely to displace the human workers performing these tasks today. So, for example, evaluating the quality and accuracy of data, conferring with clients to determine their needs, creating visual designs or displays, and so on and so forth. So why is this relevant and important? Well, I share this with you because I think as we think about our own place in the world and this emerging post-AI economy, I believe data points like this can be helpful to determine where we should consider shifting our focus, both as entrepreneurs and the business opportunities that this presents, as well as professionals and the type of work that we decide to pursue. 

Now, in terms of the lists, here are the top 40 occupations with the highest AI applicability scores, and here are the top 40 occupations with the lowest AI applicability scores. Now, as you look at those two lists in the tables, are there any surprises to you on either one of these lists? By the way, we'll include a link to the full paper in case you're curious to check it out for yourself. So how should we be thinking about all this? Well, I recently recorded a controversial interview with Chris Ducker on how I believe we should be thinking about everything we're talking about here and how we should be preparing for the one of the most thought-provoking conversations I've ever shared. 

And one listener described it after having a listen by writing, this episode blew my mind. Now, naturally, I'm biased, but I highly recommend taking a few minutes to have a listen to this one. In fact, if you're curious, you can listen to the entire interview here on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and we'll include links to both in with this episode. 

Okay, I promise to keep this one short because I really do need to get back to my impending book manuscript deadline for Return to Real. Next week, I'm traveling to Austin, Texas to record the first draft manuscript of my book with Charlie Hohn, and I still have a bit of work to do. So I'm going to wrap this issue here. 

So with that being said, have a great rest of your week. Remember to hug the ones that you love. And until next week, I wish you all the best. 

All right. All right. I almost forgot the story that landed me in the back of an ambulance. 

Well, let's just say it was an eventful week here on the farm. So here's what happened. While working out in the pastures earlier this week, I managed to drop a fence post driver onto my head when I was banging in a seven foot tall T post over my head into the ground. 

One of those things you've probably seen it before, two handles, it's pretty heavy, banging it into the ground. Well, thankfully, Tyleen and Bradley were out in the pasture with me when it happened, because as soon as Tyleen saw the blood gushing from my skull and the egg size bump that formed, she insisted that we call 911. Turns out it was but a flesh wound. 

But as the ER doctor explained, all head injuries look like a crime scene. So I'll spare you the photos. They are definitely not safe for work. 

So all is well, but it did make for an eventful day here on the farm and a good story to tell. All right. So with that being said, I really am going to wrap this episode here. 

I do need to get back to this darn book. So I'm ready for next week. So please have a great rest of your day. 

And I look forward to seeing you again in the next episode. Take care. And we'll talk soon.