In 2026, it\u2019s a scary time to work for a living.<\/p>\n
Gone are the days of quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, and the highly visible union-organizing battles that began the decade and signaled that perhaps worker power was on the rise<\/a> again in the US. Instead, much of that momentum is being crowded out of our minds by anxieties: a worsening affordability crisis, geopolitical instability, and the specter of artificial intelligence looming over the workplace.<\/p>\n For the tech CEOs leading the AI race and enriching themselves as they jostle for dominance, AI isn\u2019t a phantasm at all, but a glimmering unicorn. When they predict AI is just months away<\/a> from being able to do everything a software engineer does, or that it will one day<\/a> take over CEOs\u2019 jobs, their excitement for the future is palpable. For the rest of us, it\u2019s hard to feel confident in their offhand remarks<\/a> about how \u201csome jobs will be obsolete, but many jobs will be created\u201d. A 2025 Pew survey<\/a> found that \u201c64% of the public thinks AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years\u201d, which is probably why only 17% of Americans say AI will have a positive effect on the US over the same time period.<\/p>\n Uncertain times like these call for scrutiny. Throughout 2026, the Guardian will publish Reworked, a reporting series that centers the human stakes as AI disrupts our workplaces<\/a>, in ways both thrilling and alarming. Like this essay, the stories in this series will focus on workers\u2019 real-world power and plights as well as the realities and exaggerations of the hype surrounding AI\u2019s transformative possibilities.<\/p>\n So which version of the future of work awaits us? It is yet to be settled, which means there is still time to shift course.<\/p>\n Dissolving divisions<\/p>\n Blue-collar workers who have long grappled with algorithmic surveillance and optimization<\/a> at work are now worrying that technological advancements will only make their jobs more dehumanizing. \u201c[For] lower wage workers, there is concern about being replaced by robots. But on the other hand, there\u2019s a lot of concern about being turned into robots,\u201d Lisa Kresge, a senior researcher at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, told me.<\/p>\n And white-collar workers are now wondering if their work will begin to resemble blue-collar labor \u2013 either because they will be similarly tracked and managed, or because they will need to switch to more manual work that\u2019s resistant to being taken over by AI.<\/p>\n It may seem that workers haven\u2019t been this vulnerable in a long time. In some ways, that\u2019s true. But this is also a pivotal moment, one in which something unexpected is happening: society\u2019s collective anxiety over AI is catalyzing workers to push back.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is creating an opportunity,\u201d Sarita Gupta, the Ford Foundation\u2019s Vice President of US Programs and co-author of The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, told me. \u201cWhen you have a young Silicon Valley software engineer realize<\/a> that their performance is tracked or undermined by the same logic as a working class warehouse picker, class divisions dissolve, and larger working-class movements for dignity are possible. That is what we\u2019re starting to see.\u201d<\/p>\n People across industries and income brackets are anxious and frustrated, quite like they were when the Covid pandemic placed punishing demands on frontline workers and erased the boundaries between work and life for everyone else. Those struggles prompted power shifts: At the same time that workers led unionization efforts at Amazon warehouses and Starbucks locations around the US, the Great Resignation saw a record number of employees quit their jobs, and the ones who remained in the workforce began negotiating for and gaining better pay and conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was not a pretty time for a lot of workers. And so part of the resurgence of labor organizing from that period of time was in response to a lot of fears,\u201d Kresge said.<\/p>\n She also sees the rise of AI as an opening for the labor movement to regain some of the power it\u2019s lost after decades of attacks from employers. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful about the opportunity for technology to lift up some of the issues that have been under way in our economy for decades \u2026 in terms of how workers are treated and how we are distributing the rewards of productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Perceptions of power<\/p>\n