OpenAI unveils its findings on the impact of AI on employment: how many jobs are at risk of disappearing in Europe?

Since ChatGPT arrived in the autumn of 2022, studies on AI's impact on employment have proliferated at a dizzying pace, with their contradictory estimates and their occupations sometimes sacrificed, sometimes saved. OpenAI is adding its contribution to the dossier in turn, and the conclusions are, shall we say, comfortable for OpenAI.After a U.S. version in April 2026, the report extends its analytical scope to the 27 countries of the European Union as of 29 June 2026, drawing on the ESCO taxonomy (the EU’s official occupational classification) and Eurostat employment data.

OpenAI’s scorecard for Europe: 14% at risk, less than in the United States

The report sorts European occupations into four categories. Approximately 14% of jobs would be in the high-risk zone for automation in the short term: high exposure to the capabilities of current AI, low need for human presence, and inelastic demand. Alongside this, 27% would see their tasks reorganized without disappearing, 12% could grow as costs fall, and 47% would remain largely unaffected. The headline figure, 14%, is lower than the 18% in the U.S. framework. France actually performs slightly better on this measure, at 13%, but shifts more jobs toward reorganization (29% versus 27% on average in Europe). OpenAI is careful to specify that this is a “planning map,” not employment forecasts (as well as state it clearly: caution is good form when selling models at the heart of the equation).

The report is also being launched on the occasion of a visit by Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist, to Brussels and the European Central Bank summit, where he is due to meet EU decision-makers. This initiative builds on a series of gestures of cooperation with European institutions since the start of the year, just as the AI Act enters into application.

What the French data adds, and what OpenAI says less about

Independent data completes the picture with a slightly less reassuring note. In 2024, 10% of French companies with ten or more employees used at least one AI technology, four percentage points more than a year earlier. Estimates for the French market point to some 800,000 jobs directly substitutable in the longer term, compared with 1.4 million jobs more likely to be augmented. Above all, payroll data covering millions of American employees through September 2025 show a 13% decline in employment among 22-25-year-olds in AI-exposed occupations, while employment among those aged 35 and over remains stable. In concrete terms, this translates into a freeze on junior hiring—precisely the dimension that OpenAI’s four archetypes do not isolate.

In OpenAI’s defense, not all the data points in the same direction. An analysis by the European Central Bank based on the 2025 SAFE survey finds that European companies using AI do not reduce their workforce on average, and that the most intensive users are actually hiring more.

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Source: OpenAI