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Andrew Yang has been talking about automation displacing workers since before most people had heard of ChatGPT. He ran for US president in 2020 on a platform built around Universal Basic Income, arguing that AI and automation were going to gut American jobs far sooner than anyone expected. At the time, a lot of people thought he was early. Maybe even wrong.
His latest essay, “The End of the Office”, suggests the timeline has caught up with him.
The argument
Yang’s core claim is blunt: of the roughly 70 million white-collar workers in the United States, somewhere between 20% and 50% could be displaced in the coming years. Not factory workers. Not lorry drivers. The people in offices — middle managers, marketers, analysts, coders, customer service staff.
He calls it “the great disemboweling of white-collar jobs.” It’s a visceral phrase, and deliberately so. His point is that this wave of automation feels different because it’s hitting the people who thought they were safe. The ones who went to university, got desk jobs, and assumed that was the deal.
The numbers he cites are sobering. Graduate underemployment in the US is already at 52%. Only 30% of recent graduates are finding work in their field. Mortgage delinquency rates are climbing. And this is before the full impact of AI on knowledge work has landed.
He’s not alone in saying this
Yang’s essay has had a lot of attention — it was widely shared and hit the front page of Hacker News — but he’s far from the only voice making this case.
The Washington Post recently published an interactive analysis of which jobs are most vulnerable to AI automation. TechCrunch reported that investors are predicting 2026 as the year AI starts seriously impacting labour markets. Google DeepMind’s co-founder Shane Legg has argued that AI could even end the remote work era entirely, as companies rethink what roles need humans at all.
The consensus is forming: this isn’t hypothetical any more.
What’s actually happening on the ground
The big tech layoffs of 2025 and early 2026 are part of this picture. Over 32,000 tech jobs were cut in just the first two months of this year. But the quieter shift is more telling — companies like Block, Klarna, and Duolingo haven’t made dramatic announcements about replacing people with AI. They’ve simply stopped hiring for roles that AI can now cover, and let natural attrition do the work.
That’s the pattern to watch. It’s not a single dramatic event. It’s a slow squeeze: fewer hires, more automation, higher expectations from smaller teams.
What this means for your business
Yang’s essay is US-focused, but the underlying technology doesn’t respect borders. The same AI tools that are reshaping American white-collar work are available to every business in the UK, right now.
The question isn’t whether AI will change how office work gets done. It already is. The question is whether you’re the one deciding how it changes your business, or whether you’re waiting to react when it changes your market.
If you’ve been putting off thinking about where AI fits into your operations, Yang’s essay is worth a read. Not because every prediction will come true on his timeline, but because the direction of travel is clear — and businesses that start adapting now will have a significant advantage over those that don’t.
Read the full essay on Andrew Yang’s blog.
If you want to talk through what this means for your business specifically, book a free call. No sales pitch — just an honest look at where AI could make a real difference for you.