CAIS Wage Loss Dashboard estimates 117,000 AI-attributed US job cuts and $8.5B in annual wage losses in 2026
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) maintains a Wage Loss Dashboard that estimates the economic cost of US job cuts companies attribute to AI. It was updated this month with September data. It shows just over 117,000 AI-attributed job cuts nationally since January 2026, equal to about $8.5 billion in estimated annual wage losses. This is industry and economic news with no direct cybersecurity threat or defender action.
Detalhes técnicos
- The dashboard multiplies AI-attributed cuts by the average annual salary to estimate wage loss. It then divides by state population to get a per-person figure: roughly $25 nationally, $56 in California (just over 27,000 cuts) and $14 in Alaska (138 cuts).
- State figures are estimates, not observed layoffs. CAIS applies each month's national share of AI-citing cuts to that state's announced job cuts.
- Data sources are Challenger, Gray, and Christmas monthly reports, Bureau of Labor Statistics state mean wages and US Census Bureau population estimates. Challenger identified over 54,000 AI-linked cuts in 2025, about one in 20 layoffs.
- Caveats: the dashboard excludes jobs created by AI, productivity gains, re-employment and secondary effects. Attribution relies on companies' own statements and there is no single definition of an AI-driven layoff.
- The dashboard also cites the Remote Labor Index (RLI) benchmark, which CAIS co-developed. The best AI agent's score rose from 2.5% to 15.8% of freelance projects completed at professional quality in eight months. RLI measures capability, not actual task displacement.
- Related trackers include Jobloss.ai from the Alliance for Secure AI, which logs layoffs of at least 100 jobs that mention AI or proxy terms such as automation or productivity.
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CAIS Wage Loss Dashboard estimates 117,000 AI-attributed US job cuts and $8.5B in annual wage losses in 2026
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The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) maintains a Wage Loss Dashboard that estimates the economic cost of US job cuts companies attribute to AI. It was updated this month with September data. It shows just over 117,000 AI-attributed job cuts nationally since January 2026, equal to about $8.5 billion in estimated annual wage losses. This is industry and economic news with no direct cybersecurity threat or defender action.
Technical Details
- The dashboard multiplies AI-attributed cuts by the average annual salary to estimate wage loss. It then divides by state population to get a per-person figure: roughly $25 nationally, $56 in California (just over 27,000 cuts) and $14 in Alaska (138 cuts).
- State figures are estimates, not observed layoffs. CAIS applies each month's national share of AI-citing cuts to that state's announced job cuts.
- Data sources are Challenger, Gray, and Christmas monthly reports, Bureau of Labor Statistics state mean wages and US Census Bureau population estimates. Challenger identified over 54,000 AI-linked cuts in 2025, about one in 20 layoffs.
- Caveats: the dashboard excludes jobs created by AI, productivity gains, re-employment and secondary effects. Attribution relies on companies' own statements and there is no single definition of an AI-driven layoff.
- The dashboard also cites the Remote Labor Index (RLI) benchmark, which CAIS co-developed. The best AI agent's score rose from 2.5% to 15.8% of freelance projects completed at professional quality in eight months. RLI measures capability, not actual task displacement.
- Related trackers include Jobloss.ai from the Alliance for Secure AI, which logs layoffs of at least 100 jobs that mention AI or proxy terms such as automation or productivity.