AI that can replace entire research teams: Anthropic warns of disruptive impact on jobs

Anthropic’s latest safety blueprint for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) offers a stark signal for the future of work: systems capable of automating knowledge tasks may arrive sooner than expected, with profound consequences for high-skill employment.

In its Responsible Scaling Policy version 3.0, released on 24 February, the AI company frames certain capabilities as so transformative that they could reshape economies and power structures, including the ability to perform the work of entire human teams.

The policy identifies as especially risky AI that can “fully automate, or otherwise dramatically accelerate, the work of large, top-tier teams of human researchers,” a scenario that threatens jobs across science, engineering, finance, software development and other knowledge-intensive fields. 

Elite jobs in the crosshairs

Unlike earlier waves of automation that targeted routine labour, the document focuses squarely on high-skill professions. Anthropic warns that rapid progress in areas such as energy, robotics, weapons development and AI itself could trigger “rapid disruptions to the global balance of power.” 

The company notes that one benchmark for “highly capable” systems would be the ability to compress years of scientific progress into a fraction of the time, a threshold that could reduce the need for large human research teams.

For industries built on intellectual capital, that shift could translate into fewer roles, smaller teams and a premium on oversight rather than execution.

Automation framed as a security risk

The policy treats workforce disruption as a secondary effect of broader societal risk. Anthropic’s primary concern is not unemployment but the consequences of powerful AI systems falling into the wrong hands or advancing too quickly.

The framework is designed to manage “catastrophic risks from advanced AI systems,” including scenarios that could cause “fundamental destabilisation of global systems.” 

That framing suggests job losses are viewed less as a labour-market issue and more as part of a wider transformation of economic and geopolitical structures.

For businesses, the message is clear. The next wave of automation may not eliminate jobs gradually but could rapidly reshape entire professional domains once systems cross critical capability thresholds.