White-Collar Work Was Supposed to Be Safe. AI Disagrees.

TL:DR

AI isn’t necessarily coming for factory jobs—it’s disrupting white-collar work. While trades like plumbing and electrical remain secure, information economy roles—coding, communications, legal, even journalism—are increasingly vulnerable to automation. Churches are experimenting with chatbots like Ask Cathy, showing how quickly AI is moving into traditionally human-centered spaces. The real challenge: recognizing that for a church, business, or society to thrive, we’ll need to revalue embodied, hands-on, deeply human work that machines can’t replace.

Yes, I used AI to create this image.

We’ve all heard the hype about AI—how it’s revolutionizing industries, transforming workflows, and making everything faster and “smarter.” But there’s a quieter shift underway, one that’s already reshaping the job market in ways most people haven’t fully realized. While we’ve been focused on automation in factories or the latest AI-generated images, the real upheaval is hitting the white-collar workforce. This isn’t a future scenario—it’s already happening.

The Shift Is Already Here

In some ways, we’re already seeing this happen. Jobs in the trades—like plumbing, HVAC, and electrical work—are becoming increasingly in demand, while tech workers are facing rounds of layoffs. Some of that attrition is tied to corporate revenue metrics and shareholder expectations. But the reality is, pipes will always need fixing, AC units will always need repairing, and toilets will always clog. The same can’t be said for many tech jobs.

I was recently listening to a podcast about AI, where the guest—an ordained pastor working in a church communications role—acknowledged some ambiguity and concern about how AI might disrupt the job market. Still, he guessed that his role as a communications professional was likely safe.

Hardly.

The Chatbot Future (That’s Already Here)

Anyone who’s ever tried to contact their cable TV provider or any large company knows the drill: before you reach a real human being, you're forced to navigate a chatbot. It’s not hard to imagine a future where churches deploy custom AI chatbots to meet congregants' everyday needs.

“Hey chatbot, what time is Sunday service this week?”
“Hey chatbot, what activities are happening at church today?”
“Hey chatbot, what’s our church’s stance on XYZ in the news right now?”

In fact, my colleague Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija at TryTank Experimental Lab has already created an AI chatbot named Ask Cathy to assist Episcopal churches and their leaders.

When I asked Ask Cathy what she does (Lorenzo does refer to Cathy as “she”), this was the response:¹

“As a virtual guide, I can assist Episcopal churches by providing information and guidance on various topics related to the Episcopal Church. Here are some ways I can help:

• Resource Guidance – I can direct you to programs related to evangelism, racial reconciliation, and creation care.
• Hymn Information – I can provide hymn numbers and sources from authorized Episcopal hymnals.
• Lectionary Information – I can offer Revised Common Lectionary readings for specific Sundays or feast days.
• Christian Formation – I can point you to resources like Godly Play for kids and Education for Ministry for adults.
• General Information – I can answer questions about the structure, beliefs, and practices of the Episcopal Church.”

It’s not perfect—when I first asked, “How do you help Episcopal churches?” Cathy responded with a generic paragraph about how The Episcopal Church helps its congregations. But refinement will come.

The Real Threat Is to White-Collar Work

What’s striking about this rapid AI adoption is how it’s disproportionately impacting the white-collar world—especially the so-called “information economy.”²

Coined in the 1960s and ’70s, the term described a shift in the American economy from manufacturing to information production and management. But information economies have existed for over two centuries, evolving both as a continuous commodification of knowledge and as uneven, contested developments that shaped economic life and often reinforced racial, gender, and class inequities.

Over time, these systems became increasingly bureaucratized and quantified, setting the stage for today’s Big Data landscape. But it was never a straightforward march of progress—rather, it’s a messy, regionally varied history with shifting definitions of both “information” and “economy.”

Are We Sleepwalking Toward Disruption?

With AI, we're approaching another drastic shift—and I’m not sure that the white-collar professionals so eagerly embracing it understand the extent of the disruption. Full disclosure: I use AI to help refine and edit posts like this one. I'm just as implicated as anyone else.

But here’s the thing: many information economy jobs—writing code, drafting legal documents, even reporting news—are vulnerable to being fully replaced by AI.

By contrast, jobs like caring for children, preparing food, fixing a car, or installing a light switch won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon, or even by robotics in the near future.

Sure, assembly-line jobs have become more mechanized—but those roles often required humans to perform highly repetitive, robotic tasks. Replacing those with machines made sense. But the real human advantage lies in managing the variables—responding to the unexpected when caring for a toddler, repairing an engine, or rewiring a house.

What Comes Next?

The future of work won’t be evenly disrupted. As AI continues to evolve, we’ll need to rethink not just what jobs are secure, but what kind of value we place on different kinds of work—especially the embodied, hands-on, deeply human kinds that machines can’t easily replicate. The information economy may have defined the last century, but what’s coming next will challenge our assumptions about security, skill, and significance. We’d be wise to pay attention now—before the shift fully arrives.

1. Ask Cathy chatbot, TryTank Experimental Lab, response to author's query, June 2025, https://www.trytank.org/ask-cathy.html.

2. Dan Bouk, “Information Economy,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History (Oxford University Press, 2019), https://www.sciencegate.app/document/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.903.