Artificial-intelligence systems are moving beyond back-office support to perform core white-collar tasks, prompting fresh rounds of layoffs and unsettling creative and financial professions alike. Anthropic this week unveiled a finance-specific version of its Claude model that can parse earnings calls, build Monte Carlo simulations and draft investment memos. Bridgewater Associates and Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund are already using the tool; NBIM says it has automated work equivalent to 213,000 analyst hours and lifted productivity 20%. AIG reports that underwriting reviews now take one-fifth of the previous time. In entertainment, major studios and production companies are testing generative-video software from Runway, Google and OpenAI to storyboard, create foreign-language dubs and even generate entire scenes. The Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, still digesting 2023 strike provisions that limit compulsory AI use, warn that voice actors and junior screenwriters could be displaced as studios scale the technology. Tech and online-services companies are already trimming payrolls. IBM has cut 8,000 jobs after automating HR functions, Microsoft eliminated 9,000 positions while disclosing that AI now produces about 30% of its code, and Klarna says its headcount is 40% smaller partly because chatbots handle customer queries. Amazon, Shopify and Fiverr have told staff that only roles immune to automation will be filled, while Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei forecasts AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs and push US unemployment to 20% within five years. Labour groups argue the rapid deployment is outpacing safeguards negotiated in recent union contracts. Studios and banks counter that AI frees employees for higher-value work and lowers costs. With tools now performing tasks once reserved for junior engineers, analysts and writers, the debate is shifting from whether AI will reshape knowledge work to how quickly—and who bears the brunt of the transition.