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Prices at the pump hit their highest levels in nearly four years this week.
Credit: David Swanson / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• The war in Iran is showing up in all kinds of economic data, from prices to consumer spending habits, according to a slew of information released Thursday by government statistical agencies.
• The surge in gas prices is causing people to save less and divert more of their spending to transportation costs.
• Despite the strain, layoffs remain near all-time lows.

The effects of the conflict in the Middle East have spread beyond gas prices, according to economic data released Thursday, but there was no sign the strain was yet leading to layoffs.

A slew of data Thursday about consumer spending, prices, wages, economic growth, and jobless claims painted a mixed picture of the health of the economy, with the fingerprints of the Iran war all over it.

The most obvious impact of the fighting showed up in the cost of living as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which rose 3.5% over the year in March, up from a 2.8% annual increase in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was the highest since May 2023, and was largely because of the surge in gasoline prices due to the war's disruption of oil supplies from the Middle East. However, even setting aside gas, "core" PCE prices, which exclude the volatile prices for food and energy, rose 3.2% over the year, the most since January 2024.

The war may have influenced consumer spending decisions as well, according to spending and income data. The effects were large enough to be seen in the BEA's report on the Gross Domestic Product for the first quarter, which only included the first month of the conflict. Personal spending rose at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 1.6% in the quarter, a slowdown from 1.9% in the fourth quarter of last year.

"Declining consumer sentiment and rising inflation expectations likely diminished consumer appetites," Kurt Rankin, senior economist at PNC Bank, wrote in a commentary. "As household budgets face the likelihood of higher energy prices through much of the year ahead, discretionary spending adjustments to the downside are likely to continue in the quarters ahead."

What This Means For The Economy

Thursday's data releases show the economy staying afloat but showing a few leaks from the early impact of the Iran war.

Inflation Affects Spending Decisions

The overall GDP grew at an annualized rate of 2%, less than the 2.2% forecasters had expected but reflecting a bounce-back from the fourth quarter of last year, as businesses splurged on AI: equipment spending rose 17% and intellectual property investment rose 13% as companies poured money into data centers and software.

The war left its mark on spending statistics, according to the BEA's data for March. Spending on motor vehicles rose 2.4%, while household equipment jumped 1.5% over the month, possibly because people were trying to get ahead of war-related price increases.

"It appears consumers moved forward some planned purchases to get ahead of any further inflationary spike due to the war," Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets wrote in a commentary.

Overall, consumer spending rose 0.9% in March, in line with forecaster expectations and reflecting increased spending on gasoline. The personal saving rate fell to 3.6%, its lowest since October 2022, as households sacrificed to pay for those pricier fill-ups.

Layoffs Are Scarce—So Far

The high gas prices are not weighing on the economy enough to force companies to lay off workers. In fact, only 189,000 people filed for unemployment last week, the fewest in any week since 1969, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

That doesn't mean the hit isn't coming.

"Past experience also shows it takes a few months for higher energy prices to squeeze employment," Oliver Allen, senior U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a commentary. "Accordingly, we still think the unemployment rate will rise this summer."

The round of data showed the economy staying resilient but households starting to show the strain

"The stock market and economy are being held up mainly by the big surge in AI investment," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a commentary. "Meanwhile, on Main Street, people are hurting from the highest inflation in three years and gas prices back at $4.30. Households are paying about $70 more a month at the pump. Nearly half of the larger tax refunds have already gone to pay for higher gas prices for many families. The only encouraging news is layoffs remain low. But it’s a big warning sign that consumption has slowed to just 1.6% in the first quarter.”

Gold has modestly outperforemed silver this year.
Credit: Shammi Mehra / AFP via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• While silver was 2025's clear winner, gold is leading in performance now. That's not a great sign for precious metals, according to TradeStation's David Russell.
• Record monthly outflows in gold ETFs in March offset strength in bar and coin investment, according to the World Gold Council.

The bear case for gold? Just take a look at silver.

Silver prices gained over 140% in 2025, easily outpacing gold's roughly 65% rise. This year, though, it's lagged the yellow metal: Gold futures are up about 7% so far this year, compared to silver's 5%. The reason? Because, according to David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, silver is a "high beta" counterpart to gold, meaning it tends to move more dramatically than related assets. And since the Iran war has fired up inflation concerns, weighing on gold, that's been even harder on silver. (Gold recently traded around $4,630 per ounce, while silver was $74.)

"When you're in a bullish market, the high beta asset will typically outperform," Russell said in an interview with Investopedia. "That relationship has reversed since about February. As gold struggled, silver has struggled more."

With crude oil prices remaining aloft, and no sign of a near-term truce with Iran, Federal Reserve officials have been more vocal about their inflation concerns. Analysts have viewed those comments as slightly hawkish, damaging hopes of rate cuts that markets were pricing in last year. Higher rates can make yield-bearing assets like short-term Treasurys look more appealing than precious metals and other assets that don't pay yields. The "lingering optimism from last year is slowly fading," Russell said.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

That silver prices are lagging gold's so far this year is one indication that conditions once supportive of precious metals have turned, according to market experts.

That's not to say that the investment case underlying gold—whether it's the debasement trade; the idea that central banks around the world are panning the U.S. dollar for gold, a more neutral safe haven; or something else—is necessarily broken. But silver's relative underperformance and other factors suggest that a precious metals' recovery isn't likely to materialize anytime soon. After last year's blistering run higher, both gold and silver were in positive territory to start the year, but have fallen into the red over the past three months.

That dynamic was evident in the World Gold Council's first-quarter report on gold trends, published on Wednesday, which showed U.S. demand falling to a third of its 10-year quarterly average, driven primarily by a "sharp reversal" in physically backed gold ETF flows—funds like the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) or the iShares Gold Trust (IAU)— in March.

Investments in gold via ETFs over the last decade have, on average, represented about 40% of quarterly net U.S. gold demand. They rose to more than 70% in 2025, the strongest year of inflows seen on record in dollar terms, and the second-highest in tonnage terms, according to the World Gold Council. Then record monthly outflows in March hit, more than offsetting inflows from earlier in the year, and eclipsing demand seen in gold bar and coin investments in the quarter, the firm said.

"U.S. gold demand weakness reflects a cyclical investment pause, not a breakdown in demand," the World Gold Council said.

Meta on Wednesday raised its full-year capex forecast by $10 billion to between $125 billion and $145 billion. .
Credit: Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Meta stock plummeted on Thursday after the company upped its full-year AI spending forecast but struggled to clarify to investors how it will monetize its investments in frontier models.
• Meta's revenue growth accelerated last quarter to its fastest rate in five years, suggesting AI has improved the performance of its core ad business.

Meta is upping its AI investments. Wall Street's not sure how that will pay off.

Social media giant Meta (META) on Wednesday raised its 2026 capital expenditures forecast to between $125 billion and $145 billion, a $10 billion increase from the forecast given just three months ago. Meta attributed the step-up in spending to “higher component pricing this year and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future year capacity.” It also reported quarterly results that beat the Street's revenue and profit expectations.

But investors blanched—even as they rewarded other big companies for similar moves. Meta stock was down more than 9% in recent trading, putting shares about 8% below where they started the year. Alphabet (GOOG) also upped its AI budget on Wednesday, and its shares jumped more than 7% Thursday. So what gives? 

Why This Matters

Meta is an anomaly among tech companies aggressively investing in AI. While Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Oracle are all spending billions on computing capacity they effectively rent out to other companies, Meta is investing in frontier models and data centers for its own use. That difference was at the heart of Wall Street reaction to its latest earnings report.

Unlike fellow hyperscalers like Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, Meta doesn’t have a booming cloud computing business to showcase the pay-off of its AI investments. Bank of America analysts in a note on Thursday said the returns on Meta’s AI investments “are less clear vs Cloud providers.” Mizuho analysts said Meta’s path to monetizing its frontier AI models “remains unclear.”

How Meta will factor into the roll-out of AI agents was also a question mark weighing on sentiment Thursday. “It remains vague, but we can see [CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s] agentic consumer focused vision start to take shape,” wrote Mizuho analysts. Investors are likely looking for more than a “vague” plan from a company spending more than $100 billion a year on a new, rapidly changing business.

Granted, analysts saw lots to like in Meta’s report—and see AI as part of the reason for that. Revenue grew 33%, its fastest pace since 2021. A 19% increase in ad impressions and 12% increase in price per impression suggest Meta is keeping users on its platforms for longer and serving them more relevant, valuable ads. Mizuho analysts attributed the “eye-popping” increase in user engagement to improvements in its recommendation algorithm, and called Thursday’s sell-off “overdone.” 

“Results reinforce that AI-driven benefits for the core ad business remain intact and should scale with LLM model improvements,” wrote Bank of America analysts. “We believe Meta's AI investments will continue to drive positive returns, justifying its capital allocation,” wrote HSBC analysts on Thursday. 

Recent results have some investors optimistic that Chipotle shares can keep rising.
Credit: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Chipotle rose Thursday as same-restaurant sales came in better than expected in the most-recent quarter.
• But the stock is still down for 2026, with some investors likely waiting to see whether some of the levers that have helped bring customers in will keep on doing so.

Wall Street seems to think Brian Niccol's new company, Starbucks, is "back." It might need more time to come around on the one he left—but there are encouraging signs there, too.

Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) were up 3% in afternoon trading Thursday, lifted by an 0.5% rise in first-quarter comparable-restaurant sales. While not a huge number, it's an improvement when compared to last year's decrease, and better, according to Visible Alpha data, than Wall Street expected. The stock's move has it pointing back toward a climb off lows that started in late March, though they're still down for the year. Over the past 12 months, they've lost roughly a third of their value.

Should investors be more upbeat about what's coming down the burrito production line? If they're not, it may be because the company sounds cautious, too. Chipotle maintained full-year guidance for comparable-store sales, which it sees coming in flat.

The company, CFO Adam Rymer said on a conference call, is "trending higher" than its forecast. "Guidance reflects a conservative outlook given the dynamic consumer environment," he added.

Why This Matters to Investors

Chipotle stock was for years a powerful gainer, but the stock has generally fallen since late 2024. The latest quarterly results suggest some reason for optimism if the forces that have improved comparable-restaurant sales keep bringing eaters in.

Chipotle's latest efforts to beef up sales have helped, executives said. Diners are still loading up on protein—at one point, according to the company, customers were putting additional protein in nearly a quarter of all orders—and seem to like a new sauce option. Management thinks many of those who came in for limited-time offers will stick around.

"Our protein limited-time offers typically generate a few hundred basis points of transaction lift over the life of the promotion," Rymer said on the call, a transcript of which was made available by AlphaSense. "The biggest benefit occurs during the first few weeks as we see increased frequency as well as more new guests. Also, we sustain part of this comp lift longer term as many of our new guests continue to dine at Chipotle after the limited-time offer ends." (Sauces can have the same effect, he said.)

Bank of America analysts are banking on the picture improving. They have $50 price target that is more than 50% above yesterday's close and among the higher projections on the Street. "We expect CMG's current outlook could prove conservative," they wrote.

JPMorgan analysts are less optimistic. They clipped their target by a couple of bucks to $38, a more modest premium to recent prices, saying they're "not chasing" the stock.

Buffett has often been found among the crowds at Berkshire Hathaway meetings. Saturday's will be the first in decades where he won't be speaking from the stage.
Credit: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Warren Buffett won't headline the audience Q&As at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting, leaving them to new CEO Greg Abel.
• Last month in a CNBC interview, Buffett revealed a more hands-on post-retirement role than many expected.
• The new investment Buffett teased in the same interview likely won't surface until Securities and Exchange Commission filings due May 15.

For the first time in six decades, Warren Buffett won't be center stage for Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A, BRK.B) annual meeting. His recent stock moves could still dominate investor discussions this Saturday.

The 95-year-old stepped down as CEO at the start of this year, handing the role to Greg Abel. But Buffett surprised many last month by revealing in a CNBC interview that he's still steering many of the company's investment decisions.

Buffett also said he's made "one tiny purchase" that he declined to name.

Why This Matters to You

Berkshire is among the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization, and Buffett's moves have long guided investors to the value stocks to be found in the market.

At Saturday's meeting, Buffett will sit on the arena floor with the rest of the board while Abel handles two shareholder Q&A sessions for the first time—one with Ajit Jain, vice chair of insurance operations, and the second with BNSF Railway CEO Katie Farmer and NetJets CEO Adam Johnson.

While Buffett has handed over the microphone, the routine he described in a late-March interview, along with other recent Berkshire moves, suggests the Oracle of Omaha still manages much of Berkshire's portfolio. He told CNBC he goes to the office every day and calls Mark Millard, Berkshire's director of financial assets, each morning before before the market opens, reacting to premarket activity and adjusting limit orders. Millard keeps him updated hourly with a sheet of the day's trades.

Abel sees the trades later and has the final word. "I won't make any that Greg thinks are wrong," Buffett said.

Before stepping down, Buffett ran about 90% of Berkshire's equity portfolio, with Todd Combs and Ted Weschler splitting the rest. Combs left for JPMorgan Chase (JPM) in December. Abel now formally oversees 94% of it, with Weschler handling the other 6%.

Berkshire doesn't say who directed specific trades, but analysts work from a rule of thumb: bigger, value-oriented positions are Buffett's; smaller and tech-leaning ones come from Abel and Weschler.

By that read, the trades widely attributed to Buffett in his final quarter as CEO fit his long-standing taste for durable cash-flow businesses at prices he can defend: 3 million more shares of Chubb (CB), a Chevron (CVX) position raised to 130 million shares, and a $352 million stake in the New York Times Company (NYT). So, too, does the list of businesses Abel said in his annual shareholder letter in February would continue as long-term investments for the company: Apple (AAPL), American Express (AXP), Coca-Cola (KO) and Moody's (MCO).

Berkshire's moves this year also fit with him weighing in on the big calls. In March, National Indemnity, Berkshire's reinsurance subsidiary, took a $1.8 billion stake in Japanese insurer Tokio Marine Holdings (with rights to grow the position to about 10%), deepening Buffett's longstanding exposure to major Japanese firms.

Berkshire has also continued to add to the massive cash pile Buffett built in recent years. The company ended 2025 with more than $373 billion in cash and Treasury bills, and Buffett told CNBC the company bought another $17 billion in T-bills in late March. Some of that record-setting cash pile was used in March for Berkshire's first share buyback in nearly two years—a $226 million repurchase that could signal Buffett sees Berkshire's shares as undervalued.

Saturday will give shareholders more information, as investors get their first sustained look at Abel running a Buffett-style Q&A. More revealing may be Berkshire's first-quarter 13F filing May 15, which could shed light on how much Buffett is guiding the company's trades.

After this week, Nvidia will be the only Magnificent 7 company left to report.
Credit: Investopedia

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Google-parent Alphabet jumped on Thursday after it said surging demand for its AI models and services helped its cloud business grow at its fastest rate in nearly a decade last quarter.
• Meta shares tumbled after it raised its full-year AI spending forecast, despite spending less than expected last quarter and having less to show for its spending to date. 

Big stock moves on Thursday followed big earnings beats out of Silicon Valley on Wednesday.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta Platforms (META) all handily beat expectations on the top and bottom lines last quarter. Cloud growth, generally considered a proxy for AI demand, accelerated to its fastest pace in more than three years at Amazon and more than four at Microsoft. Alphabet’s cloud business grew more than 60%, its fastest growth since 2017, when the then-nascent business was about a twentieth of its present size. 

Why This Matters

Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are cumulatively worth more than $11.5 trillion, and account for more than 17% of the benchmark S&P 500. Their size gives them a huge amount of influence over the direction of the broader stock market.

Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet all spent less on data centers and other AI-enabling infrastructure last quarter than Wall Street expected. Nonetheless, all three boosted their full-year capital expenditures forecasts, with Microsoft and Meta both citing higher component costs. Booming demand for memory and data storage hardware from AI data centers has caused prices to spike in the past year.

Here’s how Wall Street is treating the results today:

• Alphabet shares were up more than 7% on Thursday, bringing their year-to-date gain to over 18% and making it the best performing stock in the Magnificent Seven so far this year. Alphabet on Wednesday reported record revenue of more than $109 billion, and said its backlog doubled during the quarter to $460 billion. Alphabet raised its full-year capex forecast by $5 billion to a range of $180 billion to $190 billion.
• Microsoft shares were down nearly 5% as disappointing guidance and narrowing profit margins overshadowed its faster-than-expected cloud growth. The company on Wednesday raised its full-year capex outlook to $190 billion. Microsoft shares are down nearly 15% this year, making it the second-worst performing stock in the Magnificent Seven after Tesla (TSLA). 
• Amazon shares ticked down almost 2% after the company’s current-quarter operating income forecast missed analyst estimates despite accelerating cloud growth. Investors were also eyeing the e-commerce giant’s free cash flow, which fell 95% from last year to just $1.2 billion last quarter. Amazon stock, despite slipping Thursday, is up about 14% this year. 
• Meta stock tumbled nearly 10% after the company’s user growth and capital expenditures fell short of estimates. Thursday’s slump plunged Meta stock into the red for the year. Shares have lost nearly 7% of their value in 2026.

As for the rest of the Magnificent 7, Tesla shares rose a bit more than 1%, while Apple (AAPL), which reports its own results after the close, edged higher.

Read Investopedia's full coverage of today's trading here.

Even with Thursday's gains, Eli Lilly shares are down about 14% since the start of the year.
Credit: Mark Felix / Bloomberg / Getty Images

What You Need to Know

• Eli Lilly shares jumped Thursday after the drugmaker posted earnings that topped estimates and hiked its outlook.
• Sales of its weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound have surged, and the company received FDA approval for its first weight-loss pill this month.

Eli Lilly's stock is powering higher on fresh signs of booming demand for its weight-loss drugs. Will it be enough to drive a recovery for the stock?

Shares of Eli Lilly (LLY) were up over 9% in recent trading, after the drugmaker posted earnings that blew past analysts' estimates and hiked its outlook. Eli Lilly reported adjusted per share of $8.55 on $19.8 billion in revenue for the first quarter. Both figures were well above the $6.77 in EPS on revenue of $17.45 billion that analysts called for, as sales of its flagship weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound surged.

Eli Lilly also hiked its outlook, expecting full-year sales of $82 billion to $85 billion, compared to $80 billion to $83 billion previously. The drugmaker said it now sees adjusted EPS of between $35.50 to $37, up from $33.50 to $35.

Why This Matters to Investors

Thursday's gains could help Eli Lilly's stock recover some of the ground it has lost this year amid concerns of competition in the weight-loss industry after rival Novo Nordisk (NVO) was the first to get a weight-loss pill approved in December.

Executives also said Eli Lilly expects benefit from adding another weight-loss drug to the mix, after the Food and Drug Administration approved its weight-loss pill, Foundayo, at the start of the month. CEO David Ricks said adding an oral weight-loss drug will "meaningfully expand the number of people who can benefit" from the medications.

Analysts said ahead of the report that they see Foundayo eventually becoming the "preferred" weight-loss pill, and said they would be looking for indications of the drug's prescription trends in its first month of availability. Eli Lilly said the drug's U.S. launch is "off to a strong start," with at least 80% of the drug's prescriptions going to patients who are new to weight-loss drugs.

Even with Thursday's gains, Eli Lilly shares are still down about 14% since the start of the year.

News of the day for April 30, 2026

The major indexes rebounded from steep losses in March to post big gains this month.
Credit: Michael Nagle / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Stock futures are rising as investors digest a barrage of earnings reports from tech giants and other major companies; quarterly results from Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft all came in above Wall Street expectations; Apple is set to release its numbers later today after announcing a CEO succession plan last week; Eli Lilly and Caterpillar headline a busy morning of earnings reports; and investors will be keeping an eye on inflation and economic growth data this morning. Here's what you need to know today.

Stock Futures Rise as Big Month of Gains Draws to a Close

Stock futures are gaining ground Thursday morning as investors assess last night's slate of Big Tech earnings reports and results from several other noteworthy companies. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.6% recently, those linked to the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively. The major indexes turned in a mixed performance yesterday but are on track to post huge monthly gains. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 enter the day up 14% and 9%, respectively, in April, their biggest one-month gains since 2020.

West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, were down roughly 2% at around $105 per barrel, after rising for most of the past two weeks amid uncertainty about the Iran war. Gold futures were up nearly 2% at $4,645 an ounce, while bitcoin was trading around $76,000, down from yesterday's highs of nearly $78,000. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which affects interest rates on consumer loans, slipped to 4.39% from yesterday's close of 4.42%, its highest level in a month.

Alphabet, Amazon Shares Rise While Microsoft, Meta Slide After Earnings

Wednesday was one of the biggest earnings days in recent memory, with Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) all releasing results after the closing bell. Each of the tech giants beat Wall Street's estimates for revenue and profit, but their stocks have had very different reactions as investors react to details in the reports and comments from executives, with a particular focus on AI-related spending plans. Shares of Google parent Alphabet, which raised its capital expenditures forecast, were up 8% in recent premarket trading and poised to set a record high. Amazon shares were up 4%, also tracking for a new high. Shares of Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, which also lifted its capex outlook, were down 9% ahead of the bell, while Microsoft stock fell 2%.

Apple Set to Release Results After Closing Bell

Apple (AAPL) will wrap up the big week of tech results with its report after the closing bell today. The iPhone maker is expected to report $109.34 billion in revenue along with earnings of $1.94 per share, each rising year-over-year. While the results will be important, investors will also focus on the company's CEO succession plan. Apple announced last week that John Ternus, a longtime hardware executive at the company, will take over the top job from Tim Cook at the start of September. Investors will likely be eager to hear about the transition process and any insights into what Ternus' priorities will be as CEO.

Plenty of Earnings Beyond Big Tech

Investors are paying attention to earnings reports from a slew of companies beyond the Magnificent Seven. Shares of heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT) and pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly (LLY) were each up about 6% in premarket trading after strong results. Merck & Co. (MRK) and Cigna (CI) were also gaining ground after their reports, while Mastercard (MA) and ConocoPhillips (COP) lost ground. Hardware firms Sandisk (SNDK) and Western Digital Corp. (WDC) are scheduled to report after the closing bell today amid a hot streak for data storage and memory stocks. Reddit (RDDT), Roblox (RBLX) and EV maker Rivian (RIVN) are also set to report after markets close today.

March PCE, First Quarter GDP Data Come Today

A key report on inflation and quarterly economic growth data will give investors their latest look at how the Iran war has affected the U.S. economy. The Personal Consumption Expenditures index (PCE) for March and first-quarter gross domestic product data are slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET. The PCE is expected to show that prices rose 0.7% in March, up from 0.4% in February, and that prices increased 3.5% over 12 months, according to a survey of economists by The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. First-quarter GDP is estimated at 2.2%, up from 0.5% in the fourth quarter.

Employees work at Annapurna Labs in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 3.
Credit: Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Computer programmers, customer service representatives and data entry workers face the highest AI displacement risk today, based on what AI tools can do related to their jobs, according to a new study by Anthropic.
• There's been no surge yet in unemployment for the highest-exposure workers.
• But hiring of workers ages 22 to 25 into AI-exposed roles has dropped by about 14% since ChatGPT launched.

The workers most at risk from AI aren't those earning the lowest wages, but are among the best-paid, best-educated professionals in the U.S., a new study from Anthropic has found.

Unlike past waves of automation, which hit blue-collar workers hardest, AI appears to be targeting so-called "knowledge work," and the people who do it for a living may be more vulnerable than cashiers and cooks who earn far less than them. Almost three-quarters of a computer programmer's core job tasks, for instance, are already being handled by AI—not someday, but in how it's used today.

The study arrives as many Americans worry that AI automation may cost them their jobs, even as most research has been theoretical about which tasks AI might handle, with the most robust studies thus far showing limited effects on employment. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, is among the few organizations with direct access to real-world AI usage data at scale, making this among the more important studies on AI's effect on jobs to date.

Which Jobs Face the Highest Real-World Risk

Anthropic's study ranks computer programmers first, with AI being observed covering about three-quarters (74.5%) of their tasks. Customer service representatives follow at 70.1%, driven largely by AI handling customer inquiries through company APIs. Data entry keyers (67.1%), medical records specialists (66.7%), and financial and investment analysts (57.2%) round out the most exposed occupations.

Most striking about this list is that these aren't the low-skill roles policymakers have historically worried about most in discussions about automation. Workers in the most exposed occupations earn about 47% more than workers in jobs with zero AI exposure, are far more likely to hold graduate degrees—17.4% vs. 4.5% in the zero exposure group—and are 16 percentage points more likely to be female. That's because AI is targeting knowledge work, the kind involving analysis and writing.

What This Means To You

If you work in a knowledge-based field that involves programming, finance, customer service or data, AI is already likely handling a meaningful share of tasks like yours. Your job may not disappear, but the door may be closing for those coming after you, as hiring in the most AI-exposed occupations has already started to slow among the youngest workers.

AI's Potential Reach vs. AI Usage Today

Many studies on the risks to jobs from AI have addressed what is, at best, a theoretical question: what tasks might AI take over from workers? Anthropic researchers Maxim Massenkoff and Peter McCrory took a different approach, creating a measure called "observed exposure" to track which tasks Claude is automating in real-world, work-related settings.

Their measure gives more weight to cases where AI replaces a worker's output than to cases where AI simply assists them, giving a better sense of which workers are most likely to be replaced.

The Gap Between What AI Could Do and What It's Actually DoingThe blue area shows the share of job tasks that AI could theoretically perform among these occupational categories. The red area shows what AI is actually doing in professional settings today, based on real Claude usage data.
Credit: Anthropic

Most AI-related automation remains theoretical, even as many, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, are convinced that AI will replace jobs up and down the corporate ladder, rendering many jobs obsolete.

According to the Anthropic study, AI could perform 94% of the tasks in computer and math occupations. But, in practice, Claude is covering only about a third of those tasks.

Legal work has often been cited as particularly vulnerable to AI, but Massenkoff and McCrory found relatively little automation to date in that field. But those in the legal, computer and math-based professions shouldn't break out the champagne just yet: This could mean, as Anthropic's researchers put it, that "AI is far from reaching its theoretical capabilities."

As AI's deployment in the economy broadens, that gap should narrow, they argue, and so will job security in the occupations where it does.

What the Data Says About Jobs Lost—So Far

Mass layoffs from AI have yet to hit the most exposed workers identified by Anthropic. In line with previous research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Yale Budget Lab, Massenkoff and McCrory's analysis of federal Current Population Survey data found no meaningful increase in unemployment rates for these workers since ChatGPT launched in late 2022.

But many have pointed out that worrying signs for the future of the labor market could be at its entry point.

Among workers ages 22 to 25, the rate of starting a new job in a high-AI-exposure occupation has fallen about 14% compared with 2022. Workers over 25 show no such pattern, the study found.

But Massenkoff and McCrory said there might be other reasons for these changes among the younger cohort of workers, noting that "the young workers who are not hired may be remaining at their existing jobs, taking different jobs or returning to school."

For now, computer programmers, customer service workers, financial analysts and medical record specialists are the occupations to watch—not because AI-caused mass layoffs are imminent, but because the data has already started to move.

Facade of the offices of artificial intelligence company OpenAI in San Francisco, California, with detail view of skybridges, March 25, 2026.
Credit: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Artificial intelligence software may reduce job growth by 1 million to 4 million jobs each year, but create more than that, economists at Goldman Sachs said.
• Jobs that were threatened by past waves of automation, such as fitness instructors and real estate agents, have continued to grow.
• AI could create work for people using AI, as well as boost demand for service workers by raising incomes.

AI may take your job, but it may ultimately create more positions than it eliminates.

At least, that's what economists at Goldman Sachs are banking on. Researchers at the investment bank published a report in late February predicting AI would not cause a "job apocalypse."

Instead, they outlined an optimistic case for the effect of artificial intelligence software on the labor market in which the technology takes over millions of jobs, but millions more are created to make up for them, keeping unemployment low.

The paper was something of a rebuttal to a viral report from Citrini Research that rattled markets by outlining a scenario in which AI software replaces so many human workers that it crashes the economy.

What This Means For The Economy

If Goldman Sachs economists are correct, fears about AI causing mass unemployment are overblown.

Goldman did not disagree that AI could be massively disruptive. The technology will displace anywhere from 1 million to just over 4 million jobs annually in the years ahead, Joseph Briggs, global economist for Goldman, wrote. Despite that, Goldman does not believe AI will significantly raise the unemployment rate.

"The U.S. economy creates more than 30 million gross new jobs per year, and technological change is the main driver of long-run employment growth," Briggs wrote. "We expect that these dynamics will repeat and AI will create new jobs while it destroys others. We therefore do not anticipate a job apocalypse."

AI could create jobs by improving efficiency, opening up new positions for people to use AI tools, and creating demand for service workers by boosting incomes, he wrote.

Indeed, Briggs dug through economic data and found no evidence that AI has, so far, caused significant job losses outside a few specific occupations, such as software development. He also argued that just because AI can do a job doesn't mean humans won't still be needed, even for the very same role, if history is any guide.

"Employment of fitness instructors (who were replaceable in the 1980s by fitness tapes and even more so today with the proliferation of fitness apps) and real estate agents (whose role as an intermediary has largely been replaced by online platforms) has outperformed overall employment both recently and over the last 25 years," he wrote.

Overall, Goldman laid out a scenario for AI that repeats the pattern of past technological advancements, citing the research of MIT professor David Autor, who found that 60% of the jobs in 2018 did not exist in 1940.