Key Takeaway
The early labour-market effects of artificial intelligence are more complex than the simple “AI destroys jobs” narrative. The Economist’s latest U.S. analysis finds strong hiring around data centres, electrical infrastructure, engineering, data science, cybersecurity and new AI-specific roles, even while routine administrative and service work faces pressure.
Georgia should not copy the U.S. numbers directly. It does not have America’s data-centre investment boom or labour-market scale. But Georgian data already show faster-than-average employment growth in information and communication and in professional, scientific and technical activities. The opportunity is not to assume an AI jobs boom has already arrived, but to prepare for the categories of work most likely to benefit from it.
Georgia starts from a different labour-market position
According to Georgia’s National Statistics Office, Geostat, unemployment stood at 13.8% in the second quarter of 2026. The employment rate was 46.0% and labour-force participation rate was 53.3%. This is very different from the United States, where unemployment was 4.1% in the period discussed by The Economist.
For Georgia, the AI debate is therefore also a job-creation debate. The country needs more productive, higher-value work, not only protection from automation.
Where Georgia already has a stronger base
In the second quarter of 2026, Georgia’s business sector employed 828.4 thousand people, 4.1% more than a year earlier. Employment in information and communication increased from 49.8 thousand to 53.0 thousand, or about 6.4%. Professional, scientific and technical activities increased from 25.5 thousand to 27.0 thousand, approximately 5.9%.
According to calculations by BTU researchers, average monthly remuneration in information and communication reached GEL 4,463.9 – about 80.6% above the overall business-sector average of GEL 2,471.5. Professional, scientific and technical activities paid GEL 3,693 on average, around 49.4% above the business-sector average.
These figures do not prove that AI caused the growth. They do show that sectors closest to the emerging AI economy are already expanding faster than total business employment and pay substantially higher wages.
Georgia’s first AI jobs will not be limited to programmers
The U.S. evidence suggests a broader employment map. Georgia could see growing demand in AI and data roles, cybersecurity, enterprise AI implementation, electrical and network infrastructure, AI-augmented professional services, and the supervision and evaluation of AI agents.
Most Georgian firms will not train frontier models. They will need people who can integrate existing models into business workflows, connect them to company data, evaluate outputs, secure systems and redesign processes.
Infrastructure will matter – at a Georgian scale
A large part of America’s AI job boom comes from huge data-centre and power investment. Georgia will not reproduce that scale. But AI still requires electricity, networks, storage, cooling, cybersecurity and technical maintenance.
Georgia employed 63.3 thousand people in construction in the second quarter of 2026, with average monthly remuneration of GEL 3,505. As of July 1, 2026, the country had 15,842 active construction entities, 22,288 active information and communication entities, and 12,869 active professional, scientific and technical entities.
According to an assessment by BTU researchers, the more realistic Georgian infrastructure opportunity lies in cloud and data-centre services, corporate infrastructure, network modernisation, cybersecurity, electrical systems and energy-efficient cooling rather than a U.S.-style construction boom.
Routine work faces the greatest pressure
The clearest international employment pressure is concentrated in work that can be broken into repetitive steps: data entry, basic customer service, administrative support and standardised clerical processing. Georgia does not yet have official data that identify AI-caused job losses in these occupations.
Employment in the broad administrative and support services sector actually increased by about 3.5% year on year in the second quarter of 2026. The first effect may instead appear in hiring intensity and job content before it appears in mass layoffs.
Productivity can also create work
AI can make lawyers, analysts, marketers, architects and other professionals faster. If this reduces the cost of their services, demand may expand. A small Georgian firm that previously could not afford sophisticated analysis, marketing, legal drafting or data work may be able to buy more of it.
The job may therefore not disappear; it may become AI-augmented, serve more clients and move toward higher-value judgment rather than routine production.
Georgia’s biggest constraint may be skills
If AI is to become a source of new employment, Georgia will need more than software developers. It will need electrical engineers, cybersecurity specialists, data analysts, AI product managers, domain experts who can use AI in their professions, and people capable of evaluating and supervising agentic systems.
Education therefore has to prepare two groups at once: people who build AI systems and people who work effectively with them.
BTU Researchers’ Assessment
According to an assessment by BTU researchers, Georgia’s first major labour-market effect from AI is more likely to be a redistribution of tasks than an immediate wave of either mass job destruction or mass job creation. Demand is likely to strengthen fastest in technology, technical infrastructure, enterprise AI implementation and AI-augmented professional roles, while routine and standardised work will face the greatest pressure.
Conclusion
The AI jobs apocalypse has not arrived, but neither is an automatic jobs boom guaranteed. The U.S. evidence shows simultaneous disruption and creation: pressure on routine roles, alongside strong demand for infrastructure, engineering, data, cybersecurity and AI-enabled professional work.
Georgia does not yet have enough evidence to say that AI is a net job creator domestically. But 2026 data show that information and communication and professional, scientific and technical employment are growing faster than total business-sector employment, with substantially higher wages.
The best Georgian strategy is therefore not only to defend jobs that AI may affect. It is to prepare for the jobs AI is likely to create – in software, data, cybersecurity, infrastructure, professional services and the management of future AI agents.
Data and Main Sources
The Economist – “The jobs apocalypse is postponed. An AI jobs boom is here”, September 4, 2026; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Georgia’s National Statistics Office, Geostat – Labour Force Indicators, Business Statistics, Information and Communication, Professional Scientific and Technical Activities, Construction, and Business Register.
Prepared by the academic team of Business and Technology University and the BTUAI Research Team, Tbilisi, Georgia.