AI must be addressed as a labor issue, and workers should be part of decision-making in AI policy. Moving beyond common AI tropes and assumptions of mass job displacement, we seek a deeper understanding of how AI is reshaping the value of work, workplace conditions, underlying business models and ultimately, power relations.
Labor Futures
We interrogate how technology is disrupting, destabilizing, and transforming many aspects of work and employment.
Team Members
About
Public debates about “the future of work” are often shaped by hype cycles and industry-driven narratives about the inevitability of tech innovation. Yet these narratives can obscure — or outright dismiss — how technologies impact workers, sidelining and disempowering them and further entrenching racial, gender, and economic oppression.
Our work challenges the assumption that workers are merely passive recipients of technology, and that automation is the solution to a wide range of complex social and economic problems. Through rigorous empirical research and targeted engagement with stakeholders and decision-makers, we aim to create opportunities and levers for workers to shape the technologies that impact their everyday lives. We investigate critical labor topics to shift narratives, expand debate, and inform policy and practice.
Over the years, our work has explored the role of digital worker surveillance and algorithmic inequality, how the tech industry and corporate power are reshaping the economic and political landscapes of labor, and how precarious gig platform models erode labor rights and workplace standards. Today, we focus our attention on applied research, and are pursuing new research on rapid developments in AI and its impact on labor. We are also introducing research that complicates conversations about the future of work by examining issues at the intersection of labor, race, and technology.
Recent Work
Mentions and Press
All Work
-
Article
The GuardianAiha Nguyen, leader of the Labor Futures program at Data & Society, discusses why employers are pushing generative AI in workplaces in The Guardian. Read on The GuardianApril 2026 -
Article
Marie ClaireA Marie Claire reporter references a report from Cornell University's Worker Institute and Data & Society that flagged the risks AI poses to models being fairly compensated for their work. For example,"...A single photoshoo... Read on Marie ClaireApril 2026 -
Article
Siegel Family EndowmentIn this Q&A, Alexandra Mateescu, a researcher with Data & Society’s Labor Futures program, shares her research about the gendered experience of the gig economy; how AI is an extension of existing tools of surveillance a... Read on Siegel Family EndowmentApril 2026 -
Primer
Data & SocietyApril 2026 -
Press Coverage
WABEFebruary 2026 -
op-ed
Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionFebruary 2026 -
report
Data & SocietyAnuli Akanegbu interrogates what it means to be perceived as “AI literate” in today’s labor market, and how perceptions of skill are shaping the career outcomes of Black workers who are already navigating a wide range of inequities. Read moreFebruary 2026 -
blog post
PointsJanuary 2026 -
podcast
BBCNovember 2025 -
Policy Brief
Data & SocietyCorporations are rolling out new technologies that may technically comply with data privacy laws, but actually create more ways to control and exploit workers. This brief offers concrete principles for policymaking that can strengthen worker dignity, power, and rights in the digital age. Read moreOctober 2025