A Future That Works: Automation, Employment, and Productivity

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This report was produced as part of the McKinsey Global Institute’s overall research on the impact of technology on business and society, and specifically our ongoing research program on the future of work and the potential impacts on the global economy of data and analytics, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. In this report, we analyze how a wide range of technologies could potentially automate current work activities that people are paid to do in the global workforce, and what the impact could be on global productivity. This work does not define what the new activities and occupations that will be developed will be, nor does it analyze in depth how the economic gains of automation will be distributed or provide specific policy recommendations for governments. While we consider a broad range of automation technologies, we do not focus specifically on any particular technologies. We realize that this area of research is evolving rapidly, given the pace of technological advancement, and we plan to update the perspectives presented in this report regularly.