Agents, robots, and us: Skill partnerships in the age of AI | November 25, 2025 | Report | McKinsey Global Institute
AI is expanding the productivity frontier. Realizing its benefits requires new skills and rethinking how people work together with intelligent machines.
At a glance
- Work in the future will be a partnership between people, agents, and robots—all powered by AI. Today’s technologies could theoretically automate more than half of current US work hours. This reflects how profoundly work may change, but it is not a forecast of job losses. Adoption will take time. As it unfolds, some roles will shrink, others grow or shift, while new ones emerge—with work increasingly centered on collaboration between humans and intelligent machines.
- Most human skills will endure, though they will be applied differently.More than 70 percent of the skills sought by employers today are used in both automatable and non-automatable work. This overlap means most skills remain relevant, but how and where they are used will evolve.
- Our new Skill Change Index shows which skills will be most and least exposed to automation in the next five years. Digital and information-processing skills could be most affected; those related to assisting and caring are likely to change the least.
- Demand for AI fluency—the ability to use and manage AI tools—has grown sevenfold in two years, faster than for any other skill in US job postings. The surge is visible across industries and likely marks the beginning of much bigger changes ahead.
- By 2030, about $2.9 trillion of economic value could be unlocked in the United States—if organizations prepare their people and redesign workflows, rather than individual tasks, around people, agents, and robots working together.
Lean more
- McKinsey. AI to automate 40 percent of US jobs. Google News
- Superagency in the workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential January 28, 2025 | Report | McKinsey
- MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce – CNBC
- Will Guaranteed Income Save Us From AI? – Michael Smerconish CNN
- Is AI On A New Trajectory? Senior AI Scientists Believe AI’s Trajectory is Grossly Under Appreciated
- AI machines will be able to perform most economic tasks where a computer is required, within the next five years.
