‘That field is dead’: Bracing for AI disruption, white-collar workers are pre-emptively changing careers

It was back in 2023 that Eugene Kuznietsov, a 34-year-old Toronto-based marketing professional, first began to realize that his job was effectively becoming obsolete.

At the time, Mr. Kuznietsov was part of the digital marketing team at Dentalcorp, the parent company of a chain of dental practices across North America. He was one of a number of search engine optimization (SEO) specialists at the company, a role that involves a combination of brand strategy and figuring out how to drive internet traffic to a website.

Generative artificial intelligence tools were starting to become the norm across white-collar workplaces and, even then, Mr. Kuznietsov recognized that his job would easily be done by AI before long, with perhaps just one human employee to vet AI’s work.

“I am very pro-AI and passionate about AI and loved using it in my job, but I also realized I needed to find another career soon,” he said in an interview.

Earlier this year, Mr. Kuznietsov, along with two other friends, founded a glazing company, repairing and installing glass doors and windows across the Greater Toronto Area. In the AI era, joining the skilled-trades industry was a career pivot that felt foolproof to him.

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Concerns that the technology will transform the white-collar world have led some employees to pre-emptively launch career transitions, particularly to industries where physical labour or in-person presence is a core component of the job.

There is still not a lot of clear, data-driven evidence that AI is actively eliminating many white-collar jobs. But the fear has already been enough to propel some into drastic change.

On the social-media platform Reddit, the question of whether it would be wise for office workers to “join the trades” in the wake of AI is a common theme across various Canadian groups.

A survey in late 2025 of more than 3,000 white-collar professionals in North America by the remote work site FlexJobs found that more than 60 per cent said that they would consider switching to a skilled-trades job if it meant more job stability.

In a February, 2026, report on Canadian employment trends, BorderlessAI, a global payroll platform, found that 46 per cent of working Canadians felt that AI was going to have an impact on their long-term career plans. Those holding university degrees reported feeling the least secure in their jobs.

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“We are seeing a big interest from the younger generation lately in skilled-trades courses, across all genders,” said Adel Esayed, dean of the faculty of applied science, construction and engineering technology at George Brown College.

“This is an area where AI cannot touch. People are still going to need washrooms, electricity, bridges, roads,” he said in an interview. “People will build houses and renovate houses. The jobs will be there, and I think that’s the kind of stability younger people are looking for in this economy.”

Rahman Moyed, a 25-year-old freelance graphic designer based in Kitchener, Ont., said that he has struggled to land a full-time job in the field since graduating from a diploma program in graphic design at Conestoga College in 2024.

He has sustained himself financially through a combination of freelance website-design projects, and food-delivery gigs with Uber Eats and DoorDash. He plans to abandon graphic design altogether and pivot to handyman tasks using home-maintenance apps like Jiffy and TaskRabbit, while plotting a complete career change.

“I regret doing this graphic-design course. It was actually a big waste of time because AI can do so much of the work that I was trained to do,” he said.

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Mr. Kuznietsov, the former Dentalcorp marketing employee, said that instead of retraining himself fully in a completely different field, he started connecting to people in his wider network who worked in the construction business. One of his friends had worked in the glazing business for years, and he pitched himself as the brand strategist and overall administrator of a future glazing company they would form together.

The company he co-founded, and now manages, is called Installix. It has three permanent employees, including himself, and hires construction workers on a per-job basis.

Mr. Kuznietsov uses Claude Code for almost every aspect of running the business, from designing Installix’s website, to drafting e-mails to potential clients and building budgets.

“Business is going well so far, and the use of AI is really helping us cut administrative costs,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever go back into marketing. That field is dead.”

That may not be an exaggeration.

Data from Indeed, the job-search site, suggests that in the past year (as of August, 2026), marketing and communications job postings in Canada have fared worse than the overall labour market. Specifically, marketing-job postings are down 8.2 per cent over the year, and media and communications roles are down 15.2 per cent between last August and this August. This compares with a small 0.4-per-cent decrease in total job postings.

Jim O’Quinn, a 54-year-old fitness coach in Burlington, Ont., left his job as a graphic designer in 2023 in anticipation of AI “gobbling up” his work.

“What I have seen so far is AI absolutely devaluing what I brought to the table as a graphic designer,” he said in a recent interview. “And businesses are okay with that because they get what they need done in design for a fraction of the cost.”

Three years ago, he founded Bro Pro Thrive, a personal-training business, because, according to him, he wanted to transition to a career that would not be “disrupted by AI or robots.”

“Graphic design is a chapter that is closed to me. But it is sad to watch what’s happening to an industry filled with smart, creative talent. People still need to find meaning in their work and I feel AI is taking that away.”