Predictions that AI will wipe out white-collar work have almost become routine. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said most professional work could be automated within 18 months. Ford CEO Jim Farley said AI will replace half of all white-collar workers, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei spent much of 2025 warning that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs, before softening that talking point this spring.
That’s particularly anxiety-inducing for some creative workers, who have perhaps spent a good portion of their college and young adult lives explaining to their parents that, yes, they would be pursuing what they were pursuing, and yes, there would be a job in that field. A Fortune review of BLS data found three creative sectors (film and sound recording, broadcasting and streaming, and newspaper, magazine, and book publishing) lost roughly 189,000 jobs. Film and sound recording alone fell 27%, by 120,000 jobs between August 2022 and August 2026. Broadcasting and content providers, which include streaming services, lost about 29,000 while publishers shed about 40,000 between 2022 and 2025.
