Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Economy: Increasing Productivity or Threatening the Workforce
Keywords:
Artificial intelligence, Digital economy, Labor market, Productivity, Reskilling.Abstract
This article examines the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the digital economy by focusing on two main questions: whether AI increases productivity or threatens the workforce. The study used a review of the structured literature and secondary data from the WEF, ILO, McKinsey, OECD, APJII, and digital economy reports. The results show that AI has the potential to increase productivity through routine task automation, improved prediction, service personalization, and acceleration of innovation. However, these benefits are not automatic because they depend on data quality, organizational design, worker skills, and ethical governance. Labor threats mainly occur at the level of routine tasks, not solely at the position. The novelty of this article is a three-layer framework of productivity, employment risk, and transitional governance to read the impact of AI in Indonesia. The article recommends human-AI augmentation strategies, task-based reskilling and AI adoption support for MSMEs.
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