Tag: AI
From AI Adoption to Productive Use: Building Organizational AI Capability in Latvia
Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly across organizations, but access to AI tools does not automatically translate into productivity gains or business value. Drawing on interviews with senior executives from medium and large organizations in Latvia, this brief examines how firms adopt AI and develop the organizational and workforce capabilities required to use it effectively. The analysis identifies a consistent pattern: organizations have made substantial progress in deploying AI tools, developing management awareness, assigning responsibility, and establishing governance, while less so in areas requiring deeper organizational adaptation – data readiness, measurement of business impact, task and role redesign, strategic workforce planning, and organization change. The next stage of AI readiness lies in embedding AI into organizational processes and translating its use into measurable value. For business leaders, this requires stronger foundations and measurement, systematic redesign of work, and greater integration of workforce planning into AI implementation. For policymakers, the task is to extend Latvia’s existing infrastructure for digitalization, experimentation, and AI skills towards the organizational capabilities required for productive AI use.
AI Adoption Is Accelerating, but Is It Creating Value?
AI adoption among European businesses has accelerated sharply. In 2025, 20.0 percent of EU enterprises with at least 10 employees reported using AI technologies, up from 13.5 percent in 2024. Latvia remained below the EU average, at 12.2 percent (Eurostat, 2026). The aggregate figure, however, masks substantial differences by company size: AI was used by 19.8 percent of medium-sized Latvian enterprises and by 47.1 percent of large enterprises in 2025.
These figures indicate that AI is already relevant to most organizations with sufficient scale to make structured investments in technology and workforce development. Yet adoption statistics reveal little about what happens after an organization begins using AI. A company may purchase licenses, launch pilots, or introduce AI tools without substantially changing how work is organized or being able to demonstrate that the investment improves performance.
The medium and large organizations in Latvia examined in this study reflect this shift. Most have deployed general-purpose or specialized AI tools, and some have developed extensive portfolios of AI applications. Senior executives generally demonstrate a pragmatic understanding of AI and increasingly distinguish between applications offering concrete value and those driven primarily by technological hype. The management architecture around AI is also developing: responsibility has usually been assigned, working groups or steering structures are common, and many organizations have dedicated budgets, internal guidelines, and processes for moving AI ideas from experimentation towards common use.
However, organizations struggle to integrate fragmented data, determine whether AI investments improve performance, redesign tasks and jobs around new technologies, and translate technological change into systematic workforce planning. This is the challenge of organizational embedding – integrating AI into workflows and organizational routines, adapting tasks and roles, developing appropriate workforce capabilities and establishing mechanisms for assessing whether AI creates value. AI adoption is progressing faster than organizational embedding.
Evidence Base and Analytical Framework
The underlying research (Nīgale, Kalniņa and Vārpiņa, 2026) is based on semi-structured interviews conducted in Spring 2026 with senior executives from 22 medium and large organizations in Latvia, supplemented by interviews with AI and digital-transformation practitioners. Organizations were purposively selected across major sectors of the Latvian economy. The sample deliberately focused on organizations with evidence of AI engagement and was designed for cross-sectoral qualitative trend comparison rather than for statistical representativeness. The findings should therefore be read as patterns, not prevalence estimates.
The interviews were analyzed using an adapted Technology–Organization–People (TOP) framework, based on Tursunbayeva and Chalutz-Ben Gal (2024). The framework treats AI adoption as a multilevel process shaped by the technologies being introduced, the organizational conditions in which they are deployed, and the people who use them. The adapted framework covers 17 capability areas: six related to technology (T), eight to organization (O), and three to people (P).
Interview evidence was classified using a Red-Amber-Green (RAG) assessment. Red indicates that a capability is largely absent or dependent on individual initiative; Amber – the relevant activity exists but remains partial, informal, or inconsistently embedded; and Green – the capability is integrated into organizational practice, with defined ownership or a clear implementation path.
AI Adoption Is Ahead of Organizational Embedding
The heatmap in Figure 1 reveals differences between organizations, but the stronger pattern appears across capability areas. Capabilities associated with the visible adoption of AI tend to be comparatively well developed. Tools are being deployed, management understands the evolving AI landscape, responsibility is assigned, governance structures are emerging, and resources are committed.
Figure 1. Patterns of AI readiness across 22 medium and large organizations actively engaging with AI in Latvia

Source: Nīgale, Kalniņa and Vārpiņa, 2026. Note: The assessment summarizes qualitative evidence from executive interviews and is intended to reveal patterns of relative strength and weakness.
Areas that depend on broader organizational adaptation show a different pattern. Measurement of business impact, data foundations, HR’s strategic involvement, and behavioral change are consistently less developed. Task and role redesign has begun in many organizations but has rarely developed into systematic practice. In the RAG assessment, these areas are dominated by emerging rather than established capabilities.
This suggests an important difference between two types of organizational capability. A management team can make a relatively discrete decision to purchase licenses, authorize expenditure, appoint an AI lead or introduce a governance policy. Integrating organizational data, redesigning work, changing employee behavior, and developing reliable outcome measures require sustained coordination across functions and changes in organizational practice.
The challenge is therefore less about acquiring AI than about what organizations can do with it.
From Adoption to Embedding
Foundations and Measurement Remain Weak
Data-related constraints emerge repeatedly as a barrier to more advanced AI use. Companies report fragmented information, interoperability problems, and unclear data ownership. In many organizations, the visible layer of AI tools has advanced more quickly than the data infrastructure and processes needed to make more integrated applications work. One AI director summarized the challenge:
The implication is that further investment in AI tools cannot substitute for the organizational foundations on which those tools depend.
Measurement represents an equally important weakness. Companies can frequently identify how many licenses have been purchased, how many employees have attended training, or how many pilots have been launched. Much less common is systematic measurement connecting AI use with productivity, quality, costs, customer outcomes or other organizational objectives. One executive described a particularly difficult measurement problem:
This helps explain why individual productivity gains can remain largely invisible at the organizational level. Without credible evidence about what AI delivers, management has a weaker basis for deciding which applications to scale, modify, or discontinue. The distinction between measuring activity and measuring outcomes therefore becomes central to effective AI management.
AI Is Being Added to Jobs Faster than Jobs Being Redesigned Around AI
Organizations generally recognize which business functions are being affected by AI, particularly IT, marketing, customer service, legal functions, and HR. Yet systematic task-level analysis remains rare. Respondents do not describe widespread efforts to map which individual activities within jobs can be automated or augmented, which should remain predominantly human, and how responsibilities should be reorganized as AI capabilities expand.
A similar pattern appears in workforce development. General AI training is relatively widespread, particularly around common tools and prompting. Some organizations provide more advanced or role-specific programs. Still, very few systematically map AI-related capabilities across different occupations or functions, and none of the organizations studied uses a structured capability framework of this kind.
The issue does not end with identifying tasks that AI can perform faster. Organizations also need to decide what happens to the capacity that AI releases. As one CEO put it:
The answer might be client development, higher-value analytical work, innovation, additional output, or further professional development. Without such decisions, faster task completion does not automatically become higher organizational productivity. AI implementation therefore requires a conversation about work, rather than simply about technology.
Workforce Transformation Often Lacks Strategic Ownership
Most organizations have relatively clear ownership of the AI program itself. Responsibility for the workforce transformation accompanying AI is less developed. HR is frequently involved in organizing training, recruitment or communication after major AI-related decisions have already been taken. It is less consistently involved in defining future capability needs, analyzing task change or redesigning roles. In some organizations, the difficulty begins even earlier:
This suggests that limited HR involvement is more than an HR problem. In some organizations, AI implementation has not yet been translated into sufficiently clear questions about tasks, capabilities, and future workforce needs for HR to address strategically.
The finding also does not imply that HR should independently own AI transformation. AI-related workforce change requires collaboration between business leadership, technology functions, process owners and HR. The central issue is that organizations frequently have clearer ownership of technology adoption than of the organizational and workforce changes required to make that technology productive.
Employee behavior is a further constraint. Some respondents describe a substantial gap between providing access to AI and seeing employees incorporate it meaningfully into everyday work. Limited time to experiment, established routines, uncertainty about usefulness, and concerns about future roles can all impede adoption. Training matters, but it is unlikely to create sustained organizational change if employees remain uncertain about how AI should alter their work or what the organization expects them to do with the resulting efficiency gains.
Latvia’s AI Support Ecosystem Is Developing
These organizational gaps need to be considered against a policy environment that has already evolved considerably. Latvia already has a range of instruments supporting business digitalization and AI adoption.
The latest Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA) program for process digitalization and AI solutions supported both digital business-process transformation and the development and implementation of AI solutions. Demand was high: applications requested €25.5 million against €18.6 million available. Applications closed in November 2025, and LIAA indicates that no new call is currently planned, although approved projects continue to be implemented (LIAA, 2026).
Latvia’s European Digital Innovation Hubs provide another layer of support. The Digital Accelerator of Latvia offers digital maturity assessments, transformation roadmaps, training, consulting, and test-before-invest services. The European Commission’s Digital Maturity Assessment covers digital business strategy, digital readiness, human-centered digitalization, data management and connectivity, automation and AI, and green digitalization (Digital Accelerator of Latvia, 2026). The Latvian IT Cluster EDIH also offers AI-oriented services, including an AI Studio implementation workshop that helps firms analyze business processes, identify AI use cases, define pilots, and develop an implementation roadmap (Latvian IT Cluster EDIH, 2026).
At EU level, the EDIH network has been refocused as Experience Centers for AI, with a stronger role in supporting companies and public-sector organizations to test, deploy, and develop skills around AI. The AI Skills Academy began operations in May 2026 and is intended to support AI and generative-AI upskilling and reskilling, including for professionals in SMEs (European Commission, 2026a, 2026b).
The competence-framework landscape has also advanced. DigComp 3.0, released in late 2025, systematically integrates AI competence across the European Digital Competence Framework. It defines competence in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes and is designed to be adapted for employment, education, and training contexts, including sectoral and role-specific competence profiles (Cosgrove and Cachia, 2025).
Finally, Latvia’s Artificial Intelligence Center provides an institutional platform linking the public sector, private sector, and higher education. Its statutory tasks include promoting AI application in public and private organizations, strengthening AI skills, providing consultations and guidelines, coordinating projects and supporting responsible and safe implementation (Likumi.lv, 2025).
These initiatives already address technology adoption, experimentation, skills, data, and elements of organizational development. As firms move beyond initial adoption, the support ecosystem needs to evolve accordingly, from enabling AI adoption towards enabling productive organizational use.
Priorities for Business Leaders
The findings suggest three priorities for organizations seeking to move from AI experimentation towards productive use.
- Strengthen foundations and measurement before scaling. Companies should ensure that reliable data, interoperability, access rights, data ownership, security and governance are in place alongside AI deployment. Expected outcomes should also be defined before pilots are scaled. Monitoring licenses, usage, or participation in training shows whether AI activity is occurring. Management also needs evidence about whether AI improves productivity, quality, customer outcomes or other business objectives.
- Redesign tasks and define how efficiency gains will be used. Organizations should analyze tasks and workflows to determine which activities can be automated or augmented, which should remain human-led, and how work should be reorganized. Management should explicitly consider how released employee capacity will be used. Without this step, time saved on individual tasks is absorbed rather than converted into output.
- Strengthen HR’s role in AI implementation. HR should participate beyond training delivery and administrative support. Strategic workforce planning, capability development, task and role redesign, and change management should form part of AI implementation from an early stage. Workforce transformation should be jointly owned by business leadership, technology functions, process owners and HR.
These priorities reinforce one another. Better measurement provides evidence about where AI creates value. Task analysis identifies how work needs to change. Workforce planning and capability development then help organizations implement those changes.
Priorities for Policymakers: From Supporting Adoption to Supporting Embedding
Three corresponding priorities emerge for national and EU policymakers.
- Extend AI support towards organizational embedding. Future digitalization and AI support should increasingly address the organizational capabilities required to translate technology into productive use. Existing maturity assessments, roadmaps and support instruments provide a natural starting point. These instruments could place greater emphasis on data readiness, task and process redesign, workforce implications, organizational ownership and outcome measurement. This is an extension of the current support system rather than a call for a separate new program.
- Translate European competency frameworks into practical workforce tools. Developing another general AI competency framework is unlikely to be the best use of resources. DigComp 3.0 and related European initiatives already provide a substantial conceptual foundation. The next step is to translate these into tools employers can use for role-specific skills mapping, capability assessment, training pathways and workforce planning. Such tools could be developed with EDIHs, employer organizations, education providers and the Artificial Intelligence Centre, with particular attention to organizations lacking dedicated workforce-planning capacity.
- Strengthen public sector capability. Public sector institutions should also strengthen their own capacity to adopt AI effectively. This should include systematic task and process redesign, workforce capability development, and measurement of productivity gains, allowing the public sector to demonstrate practical approaches to AI-enabled organizational change. Demonstration cases should document organizational changes as well as the technology introduced, including how tasks changed, how employees were prepared, and whether productivity or service quality improved. Latvia’s Artificial Intelligence Center is well positioned to support the dissemination of such approaches given its mandate across the public and private sectors.
These recommendations do not necessarily require a new large-scale public program. They point instead towards extending and redirecting existing instruments as organizations progress from experimentation towards wider AI use.
References
- Cosgrove, J., & Cachia, R. (2025). DigComp 3.0: European Digital Competence Framework, Fifth Edition. Publications Office of the European Union. DOI: 10.2760/0001149.
- Digital Accelerator of Latvia. (2026). European Digital Innovation Centre: Digital Maturity Assessment and services.
- European Commission. (2026a). AI talent, skills and literacy. Shaping Europe’s Digital Future.
- European Commission. (2026b). European Digital Innovation Hubs. Shaping Europe’s Digital Future.
- Eurostat. (2026). The use of artificial intelligence technologies in the European Union: Key results, 2026 edition. Publications Office of the European Union. DOI: 10.2785/9221093.
- Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA). (2026). Atbalsts procesu digitalizācijai un mākslīgā intelekta risinājumiem.
- Latvian IT Cluster EDIH. (2026). Uzņēmumiem pieejama AI Studio MI ieviešanas darbnīca ar 100% atbalstu.
- Likumi.lv. (2025, as amended 2026). Artificial Intelligence Centre Law.
- Nīgale, S., Kalniņa, L., & Vārpiņa, Z. (2026). AI readiness in Latvian companies: How organizations plan and develop workforce capabilities in response to artificial intelligence. Working paper. Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.
- Tursunbayeva, A., & Chalutz-Ben Gal, H. (2024). Adoption of artificial intelligence: A TOP framework-based checklist for digital leaders. Business Horizons, 67(4), 357–368.
Acknowledgements
We thank Inga Gleizdāne for support and advice during the research process.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.
How Generative AI is Going to Affect the Georgian Labor Market
This policy paper investigates the potential impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on the Georgian labor market, identifying which occupations and demographic groups are most affected. Drawing on the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) 2025 exposure scores and detailed 2023 Georgian Labor Force Survey data, our findings reveal that 26% of Georgian workers are in occupations where part of their tasks could potentially be performed, fully or partially, by GenAI, with over a third of those in medium- to high-exposure roles. Compared with the broader Europe and Central Asia region, Georgia has fewer workers in occupations vulnerable to full automation, while a larger share of the workforce is engaged in roles with potential for task augmentation. The analysis also reveals that GenAI’s impacts are uneven, with women, urban workers, younger individuals, and those with higher education being disproportionately represented in high-exposure occupations. Importantly, exposure scores measure technological feasibility rather than actual displacement risk – actual outcomes will depend on adoption rates, regulatory frameworks, and organizational decisions. Thus, timely and active policy involvement – from targeted upskilling to addressing digital disparities – is crucial to turn AI challenges into opportunities and fully harness its benefits by strengthening workers’ capacity to complement AI in their tasks.
Introduction
Generative artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly prominent role in workplaces worldwide. Tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Google Gemini, and others are transforming how tasks are performed, changing work routines, and creating new forms of collaboration between humans and machines.
GenAI represents both a challenge and an opportunity. While different GenAI tools offer productivity gains and cost savings, their implementation may deepen regional disparities and pressure vulnerable groups – especially if targeted upskilling and digital-inclusion measures are not in place. At the same time, GenAI can reshape occupations by creating AI-specific and complementary roles. Balancing these opportunities and challenges is therefore critical to harness the full potential of GenAI.
A structured way to understand the effects of AI in the workplace is by considering two distinct channels: automation and augmentation. Automation refers to the complete substitution of human-performed tasks that can now be executed independently by AI without human involvement. Typically, such tasks are routine and cognitive, such as basic content generation or data classification. In contrast, augmentation captures scenarios where GenAI acts as a complementary tool, enhancing human performance without replacing the worker. The distinction between automation and augmentation is crucial for evaluating the implications of GenAI: while the former may lead to job displacement, the latter suggests changes in task composition, potential shifts in skill demand, and enhancements in labor productivity.
Consequently, the way GenAI shapes the new labor market reality will be affected by the composition of these two effects. In particular, in developing countries like Georgia, the extent of automation and resulting job displacement might be limited, as a large share of employment is in manual, physical sectors largely insulated from AI. At the same time, developing countries might underutilize the benefits of augmentation because many workers lack digital skills or access to GenAI tools, limiting productivity gains.
This policy paper aims to investigate the potential impact of generative artificial intelligence on the Georgian labor market through the automation-augmentation lens. In doing so, we utilize the approach used in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Global Index of Occupational Exposure to Generative AI (Gmyrek et al., 2025). Rather than treating automation and augmentation potentials as two opposing categories with a large area of uncertainty in between, Gmyrek et al. (2025) apply a more refined classification that captures a spectrum of AI exposure. The ILO’s task-based framework categorizes occupations into six distinct groups by evaluating the extent to which their tasks can be automated by Generative AI. These groups are constructed considering both the average exposure score of tasks within each occupation and the standard deviation of exposure scores across those tasks. This enables the differentiation of jobs not only by their average exposure to GenAI but also by distinguishing between occupations where exposure is relatively evenly distributed across tasks and those where it is concentrated in only a subset of tasks. Aligning closely with the notions of augmentation and automation potential in the earlier ILO framework described in Gmyrek et al. (2023), an occupation is considered to have an “augmentation potential” when the average exposure score is low, but deviation across tasks is high. In other words, while some tasks in these jobs may have high automation potential, many others continue to require human involvement (Gmyrek et al., 2025). Conversely, an occupation is said to have an “automation potential” when the average exposure score is high and there is a high consistency of exposure across tasks (i.e., there is low standard deviation). Occupations that fall in between these two categories can be viewed as being in transition, slowly shifting from augmentation toward automation potential.
By using the ILO’s 2025 exposure scores and detailed Georgian Labor Force Survey data from 2023, we identify which occupations and demographic groups have the highest exposure to GenAI. Findings suggest that a significant share (26%) of Georgian workers face some level of exposure to generative AI, ranging from low to high, with over a third of them (100,584 individuals) falling into the medium- to high-exposure categories. The remainder are either not exposed (59%) or minimally exposed (15%). In comparison to other countries in Europe and Central Asia, Georgia is less affected by the threat of job displacement coming from automation, while the potential for augmentation is higher.
The exposure trends vary markedly by gender, age, and region. Urban workers, particularly in Tbilisi, are the most exposed, while rural workers face lower immediate exposure, reflecting existing digital divides and regional occupational characteristics. Gender disaggregated analysis shows that women, who are slightly overrepresented in AI-exposed clerical and administrative roles, account for 63% of workers in medium- and high-exposure occupations. Age-wise, younger and more digitally skilled workers tend to occupy the roles most affected by generative AI.
This paper proceeds as follows. First, we describe the methodology and data used to assess exposure to Generative AI in the Georgian labor market. Next, we present the ILO’s global estimates of GenAI-exposed occupations. The subsequent sections provide the results for Georgian workers, disaggregated by occupation, education, demographic groups, and region. The final section summarizes the findings and offers some policy insights.
Methodology and Data
This section outlines the methodology and data sources used to assess occupational exposure to Generative AI in Georgia, combining international GenAI exposure scores with nationally representative labor market information.
Several studies have developed indices or measures of occupational automation/AI exposure, often using different methods and classifications. A pioneering study by Frey and Osborne (2013) labeled occupations as automatable or not by applying a machine-learning classifier to the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database of tasks – a comprehensive database of occupational information maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor. Their approach effectively treated each occupation as a unitary risk category, which has been critiqued for ignoring within-job task differences. Arntz et al. (2016), an OECD analysis, relaxed Frey and Osborne’s (2013) assumptions by using PIAAC survey data to allow task variation within occupations. Felten et al. (2019, 2021) developed the AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) index, which uses overlaps between occupations’ O*NET skill and task requirements and known AI capabilities to compute exposure scores. Using AI exposure metrics sourced from Felton (2021) and the IMF Complementarity Index, PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer (2025) classifies jobs into “augmented” or “automated” categories. Specifically, occupations with high AI exposure (>0.5 on a 0–1 scale) are split by an AI-complementarity threshold: those with high complementarity are deemed “augmented” (AI enhances tasks), while low complementarity jobs are “automated” (AI replaces tasks).
The exposure framework proposed by Gmyrek et al. (2025) builds on this literature and captures the occupational exposure to generative AI by combining algorithmic prediction with extensive large-scale survey data, supplemented by expert validation and iterative revisions to arrive at a refined global index of exposure. The process begins by considering each job title as a composite of tasks, each with varying susceptibility to automation. This approach aligns with contemporary labor market research emphasizing the mixed nature of task automation potential within occupations rather than assuming uniform automation across entire job categories.
The initial steps used to develop exposure scores involve an algorithmic assessment of automation potential for 2,861 detailed tasks derived from the Polish 6-digit occupational classification system. Utilizing three advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) – GPT-4, GPT-4o, and Gemini Flash 1.5 – Gmyrek et al. (2025) assign a synthetic automation score on a continuous scale from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates no potential for automation, a score from 0 to 1 means augmentation by GenAI, and 1 signifies full automation potential without human involvement. This phase leverages sequential Application Programming Interfaces calls wherein each LLM is provided with contextual information regarding the task’s occupational classification and is instructed to assign the scores and justify them. Repeated scoring by multiple LLMs for the same task enabled triangulation and helped identify inconsistencies between model outputs. The distribution of synthetic scores revealed GenAI exposure in cognitive-intensive occupational groups and lower exposure where physical tasks dominate.
Subsequently, the researchers conduct a large-scale human survey utilizing the Computer-Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) technique to capture workers’ perceptions of task automation potential. The sample included respondents from all ISCO-08 1-digit occupational groups. Each respondent evaluates the automation susceptibility of a randomized set of 35 tasks from their occupation on a 0-100 scale.
To reduce biases related to uneven task familiarity and varying levels of GenAI knowledge, Gmyrek et al. (2025) supplement the survey with an expert validation stage. A smaller group of international experts from the ILO, National Research Institute of the Ministry of Digital Affairs in Poland, and the Polish Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy – each with extensive labor market expertise – assess a sample of tasks across occupational groups. Their evaluations focus on practical feasibility and workplace realities, helping to correct potential over- or underestimations from the general survey and ensuring that results reflect grounded, pragmatic perspectives on automation potential.
Moreover, two independent AI models then reconcile differences between survey respondents and experts, analyzing task-level scores and generating adjusted automation potentials with justifications.
The final stage constructs the Adjusted Global Index of GenAI Exposure, classifying occupations at the ISCO-08 4-digit level into six categories based on the mean and standard deviation of task-level automation scores. These range from Not Exposed and Minimal Exposure to four ascending Exposure Gradients:
- Gradient 1 (Low exposure, high task variability)
- Gradient 2 (Moderate exposure, high task variability)
- Gradient 3 (Significant exposure, high task variability)
- Gradient 4 (Highest exposure, low task variability)
Occupations composed of tasks with low average GenAI exposure scores and substantial variability of these scores across tasks (high task variability) are more closely associated with augmentation, whereas occupations with high average exposure scores and low task variability are more closely associated with automation. This classification advances beyond the binary automation–augmentation lens of prior studies by incorporating task variability within occupations, thus reflecting the heterogeneous automation risks embedded in different tasks.
ILO’s global estimates of GenAI-exposed occupations
This section presents the ILO’s global estimates of occupations exposed to Generative AI, illustrating potential impacts on labor markets worldwide.
As noted by Gmyrek et al. (2025), approximately 24% of the global workforce is engaged in jobs that involve some level of exposure to GenAI (Figure 1). This exposure is more prevalent in higher-income nations, where 34% of total employment is affected, compared to just 11% in low-income countries (Gmyrek et al., 2025).
Figure 1. Global estimates of occupations potentially exposed to GenAI (% of employment by sex)

Source: Figure 20 from Gmyrek et al. (2025).
As Figure 1 shows, women are disproportionately overrepresented in higher-exposure roles, while men are slightly more concentrated in lower-exposure jobs. Among male employees, approximately 21% of positions fall into one of the exposure levels, with 3.1% classified in gradient 3 and 2.4% in the highest exposure level, gradient 4. Conversely, the proportion of female employment in potentially exposed roles is significantly greater, particularly in the upper two gradients, where 5.7% of female workers are in gradient 3 and an additional 4.7% are in gradient 4. These gender disparities also widen with country income levels, increasing to 9.6% for women in gradient 4 versus 3.5% for men in high-income countries (Gmyrek et al., 2025).
When it comes to Europe and Central Asia, as Figure 2 shows, in this region, about 32% of employees (136 million jobs) are exposed to GenAI, with 5.7% considered highly exposed.
Figure 2. Estimates of occupations potentially exposed to GenAI for the Europe and Central Asia region (% of employment by sex)

Source: Figure 20 from Gmyrek et al. (2025).
This region exhibits a notable gender disparity: 26% of men compared to 39% of women are exposed, and 3.3% of male-held jobs (61 million) versus 8.6% of female-held jobs (75 million) are highly exposed to GenAI.
Results for the Georgian Labor Market
For the current analysis, we applied the above-described exposure gradients to 361 ISCO-08 4-digit occupations from the 2023 Georgian Labor Force Survey (LFS), covering a workforce of 1,313,636, of whom 45% (594,064) were women. Occupations lacking sufficient detail or unclassified under ISCO-08 were excluded.
As shown in Figure 3, overall, about 26% of Georgian workers fall within one of the four exposure gradients, with over a third (7.6%) of those falling in upper (Gradient 3 and Gradient 4) exposure categories.
Figure 3. Estimates of occupations potentially exposed to GenAI in Georgia (% of employment by sex)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
Notably, female workers in Georgia are more concentrated in higher-exposure occupations compared to men. Among female workers, 30% of positions fall within the exposure gradients, compared to 23% among male employees. The gap is particularly evident in the upper gradients – 9.1% of women are in gradient 3 and 1.5% in gradient 4, versus 4.1% and 1.1% of men, respectively.
Compared to the broader Europe and Central Asia region, where 32% of employees are exposed to GenAI (versus 26% in Georgia), Georgia has a lower overall AI exposure. Moreover, the distribution across gradients also differs. Among those exposed to GenAI, higher gradients (Gradient 3 and Gradient 4) represent a smaller share of total employment in Georgia, while lower gradients (Gradient 1 and Gradient 2) represent a larger share. This indicates that, compared to the Europe and Central Asia region, fewer workers in Georgia are employed in jobs prone to automation, whereas a larger portion of workers are in jobs with potential for augmentation. One likely explanation of low overall exposure to AI in Georgia is the structure of the Georgian labor market, where a substantial share (16.5%) of employment is in agriculture, which is largely insulated from AI and automation. As for the higher share of Gradient 1 and Gradient 2 in Georgia, it is primarily driven by employment in the service industries, as shown in the sectoral analysis below. Following agriculture, a significant portion (15.5%) of Georgian workers are employed in the trade sector, with a large share of employment falling within the first two exposure gradients, aligning closely with the notion of augmentation (Figure 4).
Exposure by Occupations
Table 1 represents the top 20 most exposed occupations, disaggregated by gender. The occupations with the highest automation scores are predominantly clerical, administrative, and routine office roles (e.g., Data Entry Clerks; Typists and Word Processing Operators; Statistical, Finance, and Insurance Clerks, Financial Analysts, Payroll Clerks, and others). Among the occupations most exposed to AI, where gender disaggregation is feasible based on representativeness criteria, many are observed to be female-dominated in Georgia (Table 1).
Table 1. Top 20 AI-exposed occupations (by Gender)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure. Note: The table presents gender disaggregation only for occupations with more than 25 survey participants to ensure data representativeness
According to Webb (2020), sectors with high shares of routine cognitive tasks, such as public administration, finance, education, and clerical services, typically feature a lot of communication-heavy, document-based, or repetitive analysis that is becoming increasingly feasible for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot to automate or assist in. Especially clerical and administrative roles demonstrate a strong concentration of high exposure categories, which indicates a large share of activities – e.g., scheduling, documenting, and internal correspondence – can be effectively executed by AI systems.
Exposure by Sector
The sector-level exposure of Georgia’s labor force to GenAI reveals stark sectoral differences in exposure to AI-driven transformation. This analysis highlights NACE Rev.2 section-level economic activities that face the most significant automation risks or the potential for augmentation, as well as those largely insulated from GenAI.
As Figure 4 below illustrates, at the high-exposure end, Financial and Insurance Activities stand out.
Figure 4. AI-exposure by Sector

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure. Note: A – Agriculture, forestry and fishing, B – Mining and quarrying, C – Manufacturing, D – Electricity, gas, steam, E – Water supply and waste management, F – Construction, G – Wholesale and retail trade, H – Transportation and storage, I – Accommodation and food services, J – Information and communication, K – Financial and insurance activities, L – Real estate activities, M – Professional, scientific and technical, N – Administrative and support services, O – Public administration, P – Education, Q – Human health and social work, R – Arts, entertainment and recreation, S – Other service activities, T – Households as employers, U – Extraterritorial organizations.
Although only 6.2% of jobs (1,660 out of 26,606 workers) fall into Gradient 4 (the very high exposure category to GenAI), this is the highest share among service sectors. When Gradient 3 is included, the combined high-exposure share is even larger, further distinguishing this sector. Close behind Financial and Insurance Activities, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Activities also register elevated risk, with 2.2% of workers in Gradient 4 and 19.4% in Gradient 3. The Information and Communication sector – often seen as being at the forefront of digital transformation – has 19% of its workforce in Gradients 3 and 4. However, the majority of workers fall under Not Exposed (33.0%) or Minimal Exposure (36.1%).
The lowest exposure is found in sectors dominated by manual labor and physical tasks. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, Georgia’s one of the largest employing sectors with around 225 thousand workers, is overwhelmingly shielded: 86.8% are not exposed, and only 0.1% fall into Gradient 4. Construction shows a similar pattern, with 60.9% (71,721 of 117,770) unexposed and just 1.2% (1,412) in Gradient 4. Transportation and Storage, and Mining and Quarrying also report high insulation, with 51.1% and 65.6% of their workforces not exposed, respectively.
Furthermore, as Figure 4 shows, the higher prevalence of Gradient 1 and Gradient 2 roles, aligning closely with the notion of augmentation, is largely attributable to employment in Georgia’s service industries. After agriculture, a substantial portion of the workforce is employed in the trade sector, where most jobs fall within the first two exposure gradients, indicating strong potential for augmentation.
Exposure by Gender
The analysis uncovers stark gender differences in exposure to generative AI in the Georgian labor market. A larger share of the women falls in the middle to high exposure categories as compared to men. This is especially important in domains like clerical work, customer service, and administrative support, fields where women are typically overrepresented.
As Figure 5 shows that more men hold occupations with little or no exposure, while a larger share of women hold jobs in the Gradients 3 and 4 categories.
Figure 5. AI-exposure by Gender

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
In particular, women make up more than 60% of workers in the highest-exposure occupations, while men represent the large majority of workers in low-gradient occupations where AI-driven task substitution is less likely to have significant effects.
Exposure by Age and Education
Traditionally, education has been viewed as a means of shielding workers from technological displacement (e.g., Acemoglu and Autor, 2011; Autor, Levy, and Murnane, 2003). However, as Webb (2020) shows, artificial intelligence will affect the labor market very differently than previous automation and computerization in earlier waves (technologies like software and industrial robots), primarily by impacting high-skilled, high-wage occupations rather than low- or middle-skilled ones. As the author claims, highly educated workers (with college degrees, including Master’s degrees), higher-wage earners, and more experienced workers are most exposed to AI. Many tasks that require higher education – such as drafting legal documents, producing code, preparing reports, analyzing data, or writing content – are precisely the kinds of tasks GenAI can now perform or augment.
Analysis of Georgian labor market data demonstrates that a significant proportion of Georgian workers with bachelor’s or master’s level degrees are employed in occupations (administrative, legal, or financial services) with mid to high exposure gradients (Figure 6). Less educated workers tend to take occupations that are shielded from GenAI exposure.
Figure 6. GenAI-exposure by Educational Level

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
Analysis by age categories reveals that younger, more digitally skilled workers generally occupy occupations currently more affected by generative AI (Figure 7). In contrast, older workers tend to be more represented in the “Not Exposed” categories. This reflects that individuals aged 55 and above are less likely to work in roles requiring computer use or modern digital technologies, with many in this group being pensioners who remain active in agriculture and other physically demanding jobs.
Figure 7. GenAI-exposure by Age Group

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
Regional Disparities in Exposure
Exposure to generative AI varies significantly across regions of Georgia, with urban areas – particularly Tbilisi – exhibiting higher levels of exposure. Considering only urban areas, approximately 35% of Georgian workers face some level of exposure (from Gradient 1 to Gradient 4), of which 11% (86,852 individuals) fall into the medium- to high-exposure categories.
In contrast, rural and mountainous regions generally exhibit lower exposure. This is primarily due to the occupational pattern in these regions, which includes agriculture, manual labor, and low-digital service industries. Such jobs are less susceptible to generative AI as they heavily rely on physical labor that currently remains beyond the capabilities of current GenAI technologies. Figure 8 and Figure 9 below illustrate this distinction.
Unsurprisingly, among the urban areas, Tbilisi – home to roughly 32% of the workers – has the highest share of workers in Gradients 3 and 4 (moderate to high exposure) at 13%, followed by Kvemo- and Shida Kartli, with 12% and 10% of exposed workers, respectively. These two regions together employ around 17% of all workers in Georgia. Regions such as Kakheti and Samtskhe-Javakheti have the highest proportion of workers in the “Not Exposed” category, both in rural and urban areas, but these regions are hosting only 9% and 5% of all Georgian workers, respectively.
Figure 8. GenAI Exposure in Urban Areas

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
Figure 9. GenAI Exposure in Rural Areas

Source: Authors’ calculations based on Geostat’s LFS data and ILO’s estimates of occupations’ AI exposure.
Conclusion
Our analysis, based on ILO exposure scores and Georgian labor market data, reveals that compared to other European and Central Asian countries, where highly GenAI-exposed occupations are more prevalent, Georgia faces a lower feasibility of AI-driven displacement, with greater opportunities for task augmentation. This pattern reflects the structure of the Georgian labor market, with a large share of employment in agriculture – largely insulated from GenAI – and significant employment in service industries, particularly trade, which predominantly falls within the lower exposure gradients closely aligned with the notion of augmentation. At the same time, the observed impact of Generative AI is uneven across gender, age, region, and education. Women, urban workers, and individuals with higher education in Georgia are disproportionately represented in high-exposure roles. In contrast, rural and older workers are less engaged in occupations exposed to GenAI. This is likely due to factors such as limited connectivity, lower levels of digital literacy, fewer training opportunities, and the nature of jobs available in rural areas. Interestingly, higher education increases exposure in some cases, as graduates tend to cluster in cognitively routine jobs that are more vulnerable to automation. Regional disparities are also pronounced, with Tbilisi showing the highest concentration of high-exposure occupations.
While the above raises a serious concern, it is important to remember that the exposure scores measure technological feasibility rather than actual displacement risk; the latter will be influenced by adoption rates, regulatory frameworks, and organizational decisions.
Further, GenAI does not only substitute for existing tasks; it is actively reshaping task composition and creating new roles. These include AI-specific occupations such as machine-learning engineers, prompt engineers, AI product managers, and AI ethics/compliance officers, as well as complementary roles that augment human work through human-AI collaboration and oversight. Evidence from Acemoglu et al. (2022) demonstrates rapid growth in AI-related job postings and shifts in hiring patterns, showing that AI adoption can simultaneously reduce demand in some occupations while boosting it in others. The overall impact depends critically on the approach to technology adoption and investments in complementary skills and institutional frameworks. At this stage, no research has systematically examined these trends in Georgia. However, some examples can be observed in practice. For instance, there are services offering training on the use of AI in labor relations, including the ethical application of AI in human resources. In addition, ICT-sector vacancies often list familiarity with new technologies among the required tasks and emphasize that employees should be aware of and actively follow technological developments, including advances in artificial intelligence. Taken together, these examples suggest that AI-related specialization may gradually expand in the Georgian labor market.
Taken together, these findings highlight that generative AI presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the Georgian labor market. While certain occupations face high exposure to GenAI that could disrupt existing employment patterns, other sectors may experience productivity gains and/or new job creation. The lower overall exposure and higher prevalence of lower-gradient, augmentation-aligned roles suggest that Georgia is positioned to leverage AI for complementarity rather than face widespread automation. Acting early is crucial to turn challenges into opportunities and to fully harness the augmentation potential across all occupations. For this purpose, investing in targeted upskilling and reskilling programs is important not only for workers in high-exposure roles, enabling them to adapt and transition, but also for those in lower-gradient occupations, to strengthen their ability to complement GenAI in their tasks and enhance productivity. At the same time, the analysis highlights that exposure is unevenly distributed across regions and demographic groups, therefore underscoring the need to address digital skill and gender gaps, connectivity challenges, and regional disparities.
References
- Acemoglu, Daron, and David Autor. “Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings.” In Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4, pp. 1043-1171. Elsevier, 2011.
- Acemoglu, Daron, David Autor, Jonathon Hazell, and Pascual Restrepo. “Artificial intelligence and jobs: Evidence from online vacancies.” Journal of Labor Economics 40, no. S1 (2022): S293-S340.
- Arntz, Melanie, Terry Gregory, and Ulrich Zierahn. “The risk of automation for jobs in OECD countries: A comparative analysis.” (2016).
- Autor, David H., Frank Levy, and Richard J. Murnane. “The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, no. 4 (2003): 1279-1333.
- Felten, Edward, Manav Raj, and Robert Seamans. “Occupational, industry, and geographic exposure to artificial intelligence: A novel dataset and its potential uses.” Strategic Management Journal 42, no. 12 (2021): 2195-2217.
- Felten, Edward W., Manav Raj, and Robert Seamans. “The occupational impact of artificial intelligence: Labor, skills, and polarization.” NYU Stern School of Business (2019).
- Frey, Carl Benedikt, and Michael A. Osborne. “The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?.” Technological forecasting and social change 114 (2017): 254-280.
- Gmyrek, Pawel, Janine Berg, and David Bescond. “Generative AI and jobs: A global analysis of potential effects on job quantity and quality.” ILO Working paper 96 (2023).
- Gmyrek, Paweł, Janine Berg, Karol Kamiński, Filip Konopczyński, Agnieszka Ładna, Balint Nafradi, Konrad Rosłaniec, and Marek Troszyński. “Generative AI and jobs: A refined global index of occupational exposure”. No. 140. ILO Working Paper, 2025.
- PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Fearless Future: PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer — Methodology Appendix. London: PwC (2025).
- Webb, Michael. “The impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market.” Available at SSRN 3482150 (2020).
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.
AI in the Energy Transition – Insights from Energy Talk 2025
As flexibility needs and energy security concerns grow, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly central role in managing, optimizing, and securing energy systems. At the 2025 Energy Talk: AI and the Future of Energy, organized by the Stockholm Institute for Transition Economics (SITE) in collaboration with Energiforsk, several key experts and innovators showcased how AI is shaping the energy system, from household-level optimization to national infrastructure forecasting and regulation. The discussions highlighted AI’s potential to enhance efficiency, resilience, and user responsiveness, while also raising critical issues around data governance, cybersecurity, and value distribution. This policy brief summarizes the main takeaways from the event.
AI as an Actor in Energy Networks
AI is now embedded in everything from electricity generation forecasts to district heating systems and real-time price optimization. As Chloé Le Coq, Research Fellow at SITE and Professor at Paris Panthéon-Assas University, noted in her opening remarks, this marks not just a technological upgrade but a systemic shift in how energy systems operate. Where systems were once reactive, AI opens the door to adaptive, self-learning networks that can respond dynamically to demand and supply. Examples shared at the 2025 Energy Talk showed how this transformation is already underway across Europe.
In the Baltic region, AI is contributing to a broader transformation of the energy system. Dzintars Jaunziems, Advisor for Energy and Climate Policy at Latvijas Banka and Assistant Professor at Riga Technical University, explained that the region has undergone several major transitions over the past three decades by building liberalized market economies and opening energy markets. More recently, the Baltics have halted energy imports from Russia, fully disconnected from the BRELL grid, and completed synchronization with the EU electricity network.
Against this backdrop, AI is now supporting the Baltics’ transition from fossil fuels to renewables. In grid operations, AI is used to assess overhead lines and remotely monitor systems in real-time. It also optimizes transmission capacity and supports renewable energy forecasting, particularly for solar generation. In district heating, digital twin technologies are being introduced, while in the mobility sector, AI helps manage electric vehicle (EV) charging and route planning. The region has one of the highest smart meter penetration rates in Europe, although full-scale utilization is still pending.
In Ukraine, AI plays a crucial role in managing the energy system—both in daily operations and in maintaining resilience during wartime. Andrii Starzhynskyi, co-founder and CEO of a-Gnostics, presented several examples of how AI is already deeply embedded in the sector. Since 2018, machine learning has been used to forecast electricity consumption and generation with over 98 percent accuracy. This fully automated system also enables predictive maintenance by detecting failures in critical equipment such as transformers. One example is an app that analyses the sound of machines to detect faults early and prevent breakdowns.
AI also supports automated decision-making around electricity flows—for instance, whether to buy, sell, or store solar-generated electricity. At a-Gnostics, multiple AI models—primarily based on time series data—are used to manage and coordinate forecasts across different applications. According to Starzhynskyi, these solutions are already used daily by customers in sectors such as mining, agritech, energy production, and energy trading.
AI is also being used at the household level to enhance energy system efficiency. Björn Berg, CEO of Ngenic, presented how their system integrates AI in real time to control and optimize heat pumps, using live data rather than historical averages. Reported benefits include over 20 percent energy savings, fewer boiler starts, and reduced system losses. Berg noted that if optimization were scaled to one million heat pumps, the aggregate impact could exceed the output of Sweden’s three nuclear reactors—highlighting the potential of household-level AI integration at scale. At the same time, he pointed to current forecasting limitations, referencing a recent two-gigawatt prediction error as a reminder that learning models still need improvement.
Infrastructure, Governance, and Cybersecurity
The shift in how energy systems operate today also adds complexity. As energy systems become more decentralized, with growing integration of intermittent sources, and data volumes expand rapidly, new governance challenges emerge. Key questions include: Who owns the data and the algorithms? How can we ensure fairness, accountability, and cybersecurity?
Filip Kjellgren, Strategic Initiative Developer Energy at AI Sweden, shared how interactive visualization tools are making future energy needs more accessible to individuals. Traditional methods, such as static bar charts, often fail to engage. In contrast, tools like the so-called Behovskartan allow users to explore different demand scenarios and, visualize, and test assumptions such as reduced fossil fuel use. Kjellgren emphasized that while solar and wind installations are expanding rapidly due to falling costs, public resistance to local infrastructure remains strong—often stronger than for other infrastructure projects. In this context, AI-driven visualizations can help bridge the gap between energy system planning and public acceptance, improving both actual and perceived fairness and facilitating green transition.
Figure 1. Behovskartan

Source: Printscreen from behovskartan.se
Similarly, Michael Karlsson, Programme Coordinator Heat & Power at Energiforsk, introduced the organization’s newly launched AI cluster—an initiative designed to disseminate research and applied insights about AI in the energy sector through webinars, seminars, and other outreach activities. He also highlighted the limited involvement of energy economists in AI projects and called for greater interdisciplinary collaboration to close that gap and broaden the field.
These highlighted initiatives set the stage for a panel discussion focused on the broader policy and structural questions facing AI in energy systems. As AI becomes embedded in critical infrastructure, concerns have been raised about the controls over data and algorithms that drive energy decisions. Speakers warned against relying on proprietary “black-box” models, calling instead for open-source alternatives and domestic oversight. The discussion also highlighted the importance of building national capabilities to avoid overdependence on international actors with limited public accountability and at times questionable agendas. Legal frameworks were seen as lagging technological development—particularly regarding new forms of data, such as sound recordings from equipment, which are not clearly covered in existing regulations.
Cybersecurity and system resilience emerged as recurring themes. AI can help detect anomalies, anticipate grid stress, and support decentralized energy configurations. One example illustrates how AI can detect abnormal behavior in connected devices—so-called Internet of Things (IoT) components—by analyzing how equipment behaves in real-time, rather than relying solely on code-level protections. Several participants stressed the need to build resilience into infrastructure design. In the case of cyber-attacks or physical disruption—like those experienced by Ukraine—systems should be capable of switching to “island mode”, operating autonomously during crisis. Others pointed to privacy-preserving data architectures, where AI models are deployed to the data, avoiding the need to centralize sensitive information—an approach already used in sectors like healthcare and finance.
The panel also raised the question of fairness: Who benefits from AI in the energy sector? While large industrial users are already reaping the rewards, such as a farm that significantly lowered its electricity costs using AI-based forecasting, it remains unclear whether smaller consumers are seeing comparable gains. In regulated systems, efficiency improvements may translate into lower tariffs; however, several speakers noted that public acceptance of AI will depend on whether consumers can clearly perceive and share the benefits. Ultimately, the long-term legitimacy of AI will depend on how these gains are distributed in practice.
Concluding Remarks
The 2025 Energy Talk AI and the Future of Energy made clear that AI is no longer a future consideration—it is already transforming how energy is produced, distributed, and consumed. From national-level forecasting to household-level optimization and strategic planning, AI is increasingly present in every part of the energy system. Yet, as participants emphasized, its rapid deployment has outpaced both regulation and public awareness. Successfully integrating AI into the energy system requires a broader policy dialogue—one that goes beyond the technical regulation to address economic and social matters. The Energy Talk brought these intersecting areas into focus and highlighted the need for broader conversations on AI in energy.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.