Why Half of White-Collar Jobs Will Require AI Skills by 2027

In 2025, fewer than 1% of the job postings on Ladders — the professional career site I founded over two decades ago — mentioned AI skills as a requirement. This year, that figure is rapidly approaching 6%. That’s a sevenfold increase in just 12 months. The trend does not show signs of slowing.

It’s a remarkable shift, I’ve seen it before.

Prior to COVID, remote jobs listed on Ladders made up around 5% of overall job postings. The pandemic forced professionals out of the office and companies realized remote positions were just as productive as in-office staff. Within 18 months, 25% of professional positions we saw were fully remote, and the trend remains strong today.

The infrastructure and technology already existed, but what changed was urgency. Once the demand was clear, adoption moved fast.

We’re seeing AI following the same exponential curve, but this time there isn’t a pandemic pushing things. Instead, it’s companies that are deploying artificial intelligence to move faster while spending less, and the competitive pressure is mounting.

Where it’s happening first

AI is growing fastest within roles where duties are predictable, routine, and easily verifiable. Financial analyst reports, paralegal document review, low-level content creation, and customer services tasks are all already being impacted. If your job requires the processing of information, standardized output, and data management, you’re in the first wave.

What’s protected? Judgement.

Work that constantly shifts and where the evaluation itself is subjective still demands a human touch. But even then, AI is multiplying the productivity of the people who know how to use it.

The companies at the forefront of AI as a productivity boon aren’t the ones waiting for a perfect solution. They’re the ones putting the already available tools in the hands of their best people and watching as they get more done in less time. A financial analyst who a year ago produced three reports each week can now produce eight. A marketer who directed two campaigns now runs four. For executives, the math is undeniable.

How to upskill (it’s easier than you think)

There is just one way to learn how to harness AI and understand its potential impact on your business and position: Download the tools. Start using them. Test them against one another. Ask them questions, push back when needed, and consider how they might make your job easier, faster, and more efficient.

That’s it.

The tools are, for the most part, free. Using Claude and ChatGPT for the first time means a very brief learning curve and experimentation is undeniably fun. What separates someone with AI skills from those without isn’t some secret course or intuition, it’s simple repetition and curiosity.

Use AI to draft a weekly status report. Tell it to break down a spreadsheet. Ask it to review your presentation and point out strengths and weaknesses. Where does it help? What does it get right, and where does it stumble? The professionals racing ahead right now did the very same thing just a few short months ago, making mistakes, learning what prompts work and which don’t, and slowly building the intuition to understand when to trust an output and when to look more closely.

We’re past the honeymoon period

Early adopters are well past the point of thinking that AI is some magical force that can’t be questioned. They’ve found that it’s a tool like every other, requiring context, training, and a good amount of trial and error. They have learned how it “thinks,” where it comes up short, and where it can truly help them do their job at a higher level.

This means that there’s still plenty of time to catch up, and those who are already using AI in their jobs were simply curious about it a little earlier than the rest. They’ve been building a working relationship with these tools, and they understand it better than most.

Yes, the world is swooning over AI right now, but for most professionals the hype has cooled and the hard work of implementation is upon us. That’s your window to join the movement.

In my job I speak to many, many professionals, and the ones getting real value from AI all say the same thing. They tell me that, initially, they suffered through slow, awkward interactions with AI, and it was only through daily use that it eventually became second nature. Now, AI feels indispensable to their jobs.

If you start today, you’re not behind.

When the math changes

Based on the trajectory of AI adoption among high-paying white-collar jobs, I believe we’re likely to see as many as 20% of those roles require AI skills by early 2026. At that point, companies will face a choice: Hire from a large pool of candidates without notable AI capabilities, or focus their efforts on a much smaller group who is adept at using these tools.

For decision makers in these businesses, the economic incentive points very clearly in the direction of those who are productive with AI. There’s no guarantee that those who lack AI skills will eventually show interest in developing them, and it makes little sense to hire someone who requires training to get up to speed when a candidate with those skills in place can begin on day one.

Once we reach that very important inflection point, demand for AI skills will skyrocket. Job seekers will inevitably respond, and we’ll see a sharp rise in new training programs and even university courses that give students a base of knowledge from which to grow. The feedback loop will accelerate and the adoption curve will go parabolic.

Looking ahead two years, it’s easy to imagine that an individual with no AI skills will be automatically disqualified from half of available jobs, and it’s likely to be the better half. It’ll be the jobs with more autonomy and higher pay that are looking explicitly for AI knowledge among candidates.

What you can do now

Download the tools on your phone. Bookmark the sites on your browser. Use them for something you already have to do for work, like writing an email or drafting a report. Study the output and begin to understand where AI excels and how it can make your job easier and faster at the same time.

The confidence in using these tools only comes from using them enough times that you intuitively know when to trust them and what work needs to be done manually. It comes from repetition. Start today.