There’s a subtle shift playing out in the US gig economy. Freelance writers have noticed a concerning pattern: job ads promising legitimate writing work that actually turn out to be AI training roles. Clients aren’t looking for original human prose, they’re looking for someone to evaluate machine output. It’s a small detail, but a telling one. The entry-level work that used to keep new freelancers afloat is being rebranded, reworked and pushed aside.
Across the US, small businesses are using AI agents for the kind of work that used to go straight to a contractor. The economics have shifted far enough that imperfect-but-instant beats waiting-and-paying. The calculation has changed.
The Work That’s Disappearing First
The freelance roles losing ground fastest are those where the brief can be written in a single sentence and the output evaluated by someone without specialist knowledge. The business owner doesn’t need to be a copywriter to spot whether a product description reads well, or a developer to check whether a support script answers the question. That low bar for oversight is precisely what makes these tasks easier to hand to an AI.
What’s holding its value is work where evaluation itself requires expertise. Where the client can’t easily tell good from bad without deep knowledge of the domain – that’s where human professionals still have real protection from the shift.
Is This Structural Or A Short-Term Efficiency Play?
The more troubling reality is that this change is permanent. Small businesses aren’t experimenting with AI as a temporary cost cut. They’re redesigning how they buy labour, moving away from paying for hours on repeatable tasks and toward paying for software that handles those tasks continuously. That’s a fundamentally different choice to make. Temporary tests naturally draw to a close, while these types of infrastructure changes remain long after.
Beyond the immediate income loss, there’s a pipeline problem. Early-career gig work wasn’t just a way to earn – it was where people built the track record that justified higher rates later. That accumulated credibility is more difficult to build when the work has been automated away before the professional can get to it.
We asked a group of business owners, founders and workforce professionals for their read on what’s changing and whether it’s permanent.
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Our Experts
- Jonathan Hassell, Vice President of Content & Editorial, O’Reilly
- Naveen Ayalla, Senior AI & Data Engineering Professional, Microsoft
- Robin Lim, Co-founder and CEO, Axy.Digital
- John Karsant, Founder and CEO, LevelUp Leads
Jonathan Hassell, Vice President of Content & Editorial, O’Reilly
“It’s tempting to frame this as AI replacing freelancers, but what’s actually happening is that AI is absorbing repeatable tasks rather than eliminating the need for human expertise. The work disappearing fastest is usually the work that’s easiest to standardise: first drafts, basic research, routine coding, and administrative tasks.
“O’Reilly’s latest platform data revealed professionals are increasing their AI skills while adapting how they develop traditional technical capabilities. Rather than signalling that technical expertise is becoming less important, it suggests people are learning how to use AI to accelerate routine work so they can spend more time on higher-value activities.
“For freelancers, the opportunity is to move up the value chain. The most successful freelancers will use AI to automate repetitive tasks while focusing on strategy, creativity, critical thinking and solving complex problems. As AI becomes embedded in everyday work, the skills that differentiate people are becoming even more valuable.”
Naveen Ayalla, Senior AI & Data Engineering Professional, Microsoft
“I don’t think AI is replacing freelancers as much as it’s changing the kind of work businesses are willing to pay for. The first tasks to go are the repetitive ones: writing first drafts, summarising documents, creating basic social media posts, simple coding tasks, or answering common customer questions. AI can handle these quickly and at a much lower cost, which is hard for small businesses to ignore.
“What I haven’t seen disappear is the need for people who can think critically, understand business context, or make important decisions. AI can generate content or code, but someone still needs to review it, make sure it’s accurate, and adapt it to the business. That’s where human expertise still counts.
“I believe this shift is here to stay, but I don’t see it as the end of freelancing. Instead, it’s pushing freelancers to move beyond routine work and focus on higher-value services like strategy, consulting, system design, and quality assurance. The freelancers who learn to use AI as part of their workflow will have a real advantage over those who see it only as competition.”
Robin Lim, Co-founder and CEO, Axy.Digital
“The fastest-disappearing work is the truly repeatable, low-context stuff. If a task can be fully specified in a single prompt, it’s already being absorbed.
“But I’d push back on the framing that freelancers are losing to AI. What’s actually happening is that freelance gig work is transforming into AI-enabled gig work. Over the last 12 months, the no-code and “vibe coding” boom convinced a lot of small business owners they could cut contractors entirely and pocket the savings. We’re now hitting the ceiling of that assumption. Tools like Claude produce competent output, but only ever rise to the level of the person directing them. Owners who aren’t domain experts end up sinking hours into building and maintaining internal tools that have nothing to do with their core product, eroding the efficiency they thought they’d bought.
“Personally, I am seeing small business owners coming back to freelancers. What’s changed is who they hire. The market no longer pays for someone who can only execute a task; it pays for a domain expert who can use AI to deliver ten times the output at the same price.
“The floor for commodity, entry-level work is eroding. The ceiling for expert-plus-AI talent is rising just as fast.”
John Karsant, Founder and CEO, LevelUp Leads
“Any work that’s essentially repetitive – first drafts, basic research, consistent article generation – can be done more cheaply and faster by AI.
“Where clients are still willing to pay a premium is for the expertise to strategise and ensure the deliverable actually has a business impact. The freelancers who succeed will be those who incorporate AI into their workflows rather than compete with it.
“Businesses are no longer paying for time and resources spent. They’re paying for good judgement.”
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