Automation, AI, and the Global Future of Work: Bridging North‐South Divides

Abstract

ABSTRACT Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the global workforce, but current narratives ignore the billions in the Global South. This review offers a structured comparative synthesis of peer‐reviewed scholarship in labor sociology and political economy, flagship analyses by the ILO and United Nations, and national policy strategies from both high‐income and lower‐ and middle‐income countries to analyze how different strands of automation (industrial robotics, algorithmic management of labor, and generative AI) are reshaping work and labor relations across regions. The analysis shows that high‐income economies confront automation in the context of aging workforces, labor shortages, and restructuring of mid‐skill clerical and manufacturing roles. Contrastingly, the Global South faces a different constraint: not a shortage of workers, but the urgent need to absorb fast‐growing youth populations into decent work, often in environments of weak social protection, limited computer access, and infrastructural gaps. AI offers leapfrogging potential through inclusive innovation, integration with the informal sector, and digital entrepreneurship. The study advocates for a decolonized account of the future of work: one that views the Global South not as a passive adopter of technologies designed elsewhere, but as a site where labor, data, and computational capacity are actively produced, governed, and contested.