People like to believe that generic AI, like ChatGPT, is meant to support human creativity – not replace it. But new data from Harvard Business Review tells a different story. Rather than being a helpful tool, AI is already shaking up creative and technical jobs, and the changes are dramatic. Since the introduction of ChatGPT, writing tasks have declined by 30 percent and coding tasks have declined by 20 percent. And this trend is not reversing. The numbers make it clear – AI is no longer just a helpful assistant – it is starting to compete with human workers and reshape the job market faster than anyone expected.

According to Harvard Business Review, since ChatGPT arrived, writing jobs have dropped by a whopping 30 percent. It’s not that businesses need less content, they still need words. But now, more companies are turning to ChatGPT for drafts, summaries, and brainstorming, so they’re posting fewer jobs for human writers. For many freelancers who rely on steady gigs, this has been a difficult change with fewer projects available. It’s not just another tool for writers – ChatGPT is turning into real competition, taking over tasks that used to be human tasks.

The world of coding has also not been spared. According to Harvard research, demand for software and app development has declined 20 percent since the introduction of ChatGPT. Coding, once seen as a safe and stable profession, is also being disrupted as generator AI becomes more adept at creating code snippets, fixing bugs, and even developing entire applications from scratch . Work that used to require hours of a skilled coder’s time can now be done by AI in minutes. outcome? Fewer coding jobs for human developers and a job market that is becoming significantly more crowded and competitive.

It is not that only writers and coders are feeling the pressure. Image creation, a field that includes everything from graphic design to 3D modeling, has also seen a big hit with the introduction of AI tools like DALL-E 2 and MidJourney. In the past year, these tools have caused a 17 percent decline in demand from the creative professionals who once held the edge in visual design. Companies are realizing that they can generate high quality images with just a few prompts, bypassing the need to hire graphic designers for each visual asset.

Perhaps the most telling thing about this change is that these declines are not temporary. Harvard research found no sign of a comeback for these jobs, suggesting that the impact of AI is faster and more significant than previous waves of automation. It takes years, sometimes decades, for traditional automation technologies to have their full impact on labor markets. In contrast, generic AI is changing industries almost as fast as it is being adopted. The immediacy and depth of these changes underscores an important distinction: Generative AI is not a single-purpose machine or programmable device – it is a system capable of improving over time, getting better at those tasks. Which it is being used to replace.

What does this mean for workers? Harvard data shows that generative AI competes directly with the jobs it was trained on. It is self-evident that the more advanced these AI models become, the more they encroach on the tasks traditionally performed by humans. The line between AI as a tool and AI as a replacement has blurred, and those in the affected sectors are being forced to adapt to a new, unprecedented type of competition.

So, is Generative AI just a tool? For many people in writing, coding and image making, it is far more complex – a powerful force that changes the nature of their work. As AI advances, the future of these businesses may depend on the ability of workers to adapt, evolving their roles in a way that can co-exist with this transformative technology.