AI Hits Paychecks Harder Than Jobs, Apollo Paper Finds

A new white paper from Apollo Global Management offers a sharp answer to one of the labor market's biggest questions. Artificial intelligence, the research concludes, is suppressing wages more than it is eliminating jobs.

Jobs with the highest exposure to AI saw real wage growth fall an average of 6.7% after 2023, roughly the period when ChatGPT went viral, according to the paper by Apollo analyst Sania Edlich and chief economist Torsten Sløk.

The paper found no detectable effect on overall employment from AI adoption. "AI won't steal your job but it might cost you a raise," the authors wrote. (The paper's own phrasing includes "but"; the finding stands on its own.)

Lowest Earners Hit Hardest

The wage declines were most severe for the bottom of the income ladder. Service workers recorded an average 24.3% drop in earnings growth since 2023. Workers in the bottom quarter of earners saw wages fall 10.7% over that period. The highest-paid workers experienced no significant effect, the paper said.

The research drew on occupational and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and used Anthropic's Economic Index to measure AI exposure. That index tracks the percentage of tasks in each occupation that have been observed using Anthropic's AI tools.

Some occupations with high AI exposure saw large wage changes, though broader industry factors played a role in the biggest moves. Broadcaster announcers and radio DJs, with relatively low AI exposure per Anthropic's index, saw real wages crater 52% over two years. Personal finance advisors, whose roles have more than a third of tasks exposed to AI, saw wages grow 8.4%. Administrative law judges, adjudicators, and hearing officers – with 30% of tasks exposed to AI – saw wages surge 17.5% over the same timeframe.

Edlich and Slok estimated that about 5.8 million workers hold roles highly exposed to AI. "As AI adoption deepens across corporate America, this figure is likely to grow substantially, with significant implications for income inequality and labor market policy in the years ahead," they wrote.

Broader Evidence on Pay and Displacement

The idea that AI will destroy jobs has faced growing pushback this year. The evidence that it could cut into some workers' pay is building. Ioana Marinescu, a University of Pennsylvania economist, told Business Insider that wages could take a hit once roles see around 37% of intelligence tasks automated.

A separate analysis from Goldman Sachs, cited in the Apollo paper, found that workers displaced from technology-disrupted occupations took an average real pay cut of about 3% upon finding new employment. Their real earnings grew 10 percentage points less over the next decade compared with other workers.

Apollo holds an Alpha Score of 47 out of 100 from AlphaScala, reflecting mixed sentiment. Goldman Sachs, which produced the displacement analysis, scores 54.

Edlich and Slok's paper adds to a growing body of work suggesting that AI's labor market effects will show up in compensation before headcount. The research points to a future where the technology reshapes raises, not rosters.