Canada is not headed for an AI white-collar extinction, but we must redesign how office work gets done - Toronto Star

While U.S. executives predict rapid AI automation, writes Gleb Tsipursky, Canadian data shows a transition focused on training, not layoffs.

While U.S. executives predict rapid AI automation, writes Gleb Tsipursky, Canadian data shows a transition focused on training, not layoffs.

Gleb Tsipursky is CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. He is based in Columbus, Ohio. Follow him on X: @Gleb_Tsipursky

Sixty per cent of 933 U.S. business leaders surveyed by Resume Templates said they believe most white-collar work will be fully automated by artificial intelligence within 12 to 18 months.

Canadian workers should pay attention, and not mistake that sentiment as a forecast of what will happen here.

Canada’s own evidence points to rapid change, but a much less apocalyptic story. Statistics Canada reports that AI adoption by businesses tripled in two years, from 6.1 per cent in 2024 to 19.2 per cent in 2026. Adoption is especially high in information and cultural industries, finance and insurance, and professional, scientific and technical services.

Yet the same statistical agency has found no broad wave of AI job losses. From late 2022 through 2025, employment generally grew at similar rates regardless of how exposed occupations were to generative AI. Even coding-intensive jobs grew at roughly the same rate as other work, although younger coding workers fared worse than those aged 30 to 49.

That distinction matters. The near-term danger is less likely to be millions of jobs disappearing at once than specific tasks, hiring patterns and career ladders changing underneath workers. The Bank of Canada recently found early signs that the labour market may already be getting tougher for job seekers in occupations most exposed to AI, even though it found little evidence of broad structural job destruction.

Toronto has particular reason to get this right. The city’s 2025 Employment Survey found that office employment accounted for just over half of all jobs, while finance and professional, scientific and technical services were among its largest sectors. The debate over AI and office work therefore lands close to the centre of Toronto’s economy.

That makes careful implementation an economic priority for governments, employers and employees alike.

Workers are also moving faster than many organizations. Statistics Canada found that 22 per cent of Canadian workers used generative AI at work over the survey period, rising from 17 per cent in September 2024 to 30 per cent by July 2025. That suggests AI use is often spreading from the employee level upward rather than arriving through carefully designed corporate transformation plans.

For employers, the management challenge is to redesign work before rewriting the organization chart. Cutting a job because AI can perform part of it can eliminate institutional knowledge while leaving the remaining tasks orphaned. Ignoring AI can leave organizations slower and more expensive than competitors.

The better route is workforce redesign built around actual tasks. The same Statistics Canada business survey found that 44.4 per cent of AI-using businesses changed training or staffing practices. Nearly one-third trained existing employees, and among AI-using businesses with at least 100 employees, 68.1 per cent trained staff.

Leaders need better support, metrics and an honest message to the workforce.