Ask someone in Ireland what artificial intelligence is doing to their job and the answer is increasingly hopeful: it is freeing them up, not pushing them out. A new study led by Taha Yasseri, the Workday Professor of Technology and Society at Trinity College Dublin, finds that AI is quietly reshaping Irish workplaces for the better — changing the tasks people do every day rather than taking their jobs away.
The "Right-Sizing AI at Work" study, commissioned by Technology Ireland DIGITAL Skillnet and carried out by the Centre for Sociology of Humans and Machines (SOHAM), a joint centre at Trinity College Dublin and Technological University Dublin, was launched at Workday's headquarters in Dublin. Its core message is simple but important: the real competitive advantage from AI comes not from the technology itself, but from how organizations weave it into jobs, workflows and the way people develop new skills.
The headline numbers paint a picture of a workforce already living with AI. Nearly half of workers — 47.4% — use AI tools daily in their roles, and 57.1% say AI is used by many professionals in their field. Yet the fear that machines would gobble up jobs has not come true. More than four in ten workers (41.5%) do not believe AI could replace significant parts of their job in the future, and many people still treat AI as a helpful support rather than something they cannot work without.
Professor Yasseri put it plainly: "Our research finds that AI's impact on work in Ireland is currently best understood as a process of task and workflow transformation rather than immediate large-scale job displacement." Instead of disappearing, jobs are changing. Workers are increasingly asked to review, verify, coordinate and use their judgment over the outputs AI produces — the human half of a growing human-machine partnership.
Industry leaders see this as a golden opportunity. Mark Jordan, chief executive of Skillnet Ireland, called AI "one of the most significant opportunities for Ireland's future competitiveness," while Una Fitzpatrick, director of Technology Ireland, said businesses are using AI to streamline processes and free people up to focus on strategic priorities)Skip.
There is one important gap the study uncovered: workers feel confident using AI, but far fewer have taken part in formal training. That gap, the researchers say, points to a need for more structured, practical and role-specific skills development. Máire Hunt, director of Technology Ireland DIGITAL Skillnet, captured the challenge neatly: "using AI and generating real business value from AI are two very different things." As Ireland pushes to become a global leader in talent and digital transformation, the path forward is clear — invest in people, and the technology will follow.