What happened
The Buenos Aires Herald reports that a study by the Economic and Social Council of Buenos Aires City, based on International Labor Organization data, found Argentina has the highest occupational exposure to generative AI in Latin America. The study gives Argentina a score of 0.292 on a 0-to-1 scale, while Buenos Aires City scores 0.353. The report links the figures to Argentina’s high urbanization, large service sector, and concentration of highly educated workers.
The Buenos Aires Herald reports that CESBA, a non-governmental public body that produces legislation, technical reports, and recommendations for Buenos Aires City authorities, calculated an Occupational Exposure Index to GenAI using data from the International Labor Organization. On a scale from 0 to 1, Argentina’s score was 0.292. The Herald reports scores of 0.279 for Chile, 0.276 for Brazil, and 0.261 for Mexico. In the Americas, only Canada, at 0.322, and the United States, at 0.332, scored higher. The supplied source does not independently verify the calculations or reproduce the underlying methodology.
According to the Herald, CESBA President Manuel Socias attributed Argentina’s position to its 97% urbanization rate and the fact that 78% of national employment is in services, which the study identifies as especially susceptible to generative AI. The article says the study’s main geographic focus is Buenos Aires City, where the exposure score reaches 0.353. That is below the reported score for Singapore, 0.366, but higher than Argentina’s national average. Socias told the Herald that Buenos Aires would likely rank below New York or London, although the source provides no comparable scores for those cities.
The Herald reports that Buenos Aires City’s exposure is associated with two features: 88% of employment is in services, and the city has high education levels. The study says generative AI is particularly capable of tasks historically requiring college education, including writing, synthesizing, analyzing, and programming. The service-sector categories named in the article include retail, healthcare, education, finance, public administration, and professional and technical work. CESBA describes its city analysis as pioneering on a global scale, but the source supplies no external comparison of that claim.
The article reports that software and information technology are among the fastest-adopting service industries in Argentina. A national survey of small and medium-sized enterprises cited by CESBA found that 85% of companies in that sector use at least one AI technology. The Herald also reports that knowledge-based services are Argentina’s third-largest export sector, generating $10 billion in exports. These figures are presented by the Herald as findings or claims cited in the CESBA report; the source does not provide the survey’s sample size, fieldwork date, or definition of AI technology.
Source details: buenosairesherald.com ↗
Why it matters
The findings suggest that generative AI could affect a broad range of urban service-sector tasks in Argentina, including writing, analysis, programming, finance, education, healthcare, retail, and public administration. The article also highlights a central labor-market uncertainty: companies may expand overall employment while reducing entry-level repetitive work and changing how young workers gain experience.
The main significance is that the study frames AI exposure around tasks and occupations rather than around a single company or product. A high exposure score does not, by itself, establish that jobs will disappear. It indicates that more work activities may be technically susceptible to assistance, augmentation, or substitution. That distinction is important for workers and policymakers because the practical effect could range from productivity gains to redesigned roles, slower entry-level hiring, wage changes, or new training requirements.
The Herald reports that Argentina’s knowledge-based services sector is already discussing a shift in programming from manual coding toward the orchestration and supervision of AI agents. Argencon executive director Leandro Mora Alfonsín told the outlet that leading export companies are expanding their workforces, citing JPMorgan’s planned addition of 1,000 employees, recent hiring by EY and PwC, and new Accenture offices in Salta, Córdoba, and Mendoza. These examples indicate reported expansion, but they do not establish that AI caused the hiring or show how many existing tasks have changed.
At the same time, the CESBA report cited by the Herald says companies adopting AI have generally experienced growth in total employment while reducing the proportion of employees with little tenure. It identifies sustained declines in the share of junior workers after adoption in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, India, Japan, and Brazil. Mora Alfonsín acknowledged that repetitive and low-complexity tasks historically performed by younger workers are being taken over by AI tools, with demand shifting toward supervision and judgment. The source does not establish whether the same pattern has been measured nationally in Argentina.
The article includes a more cautious account from Baufest. Leonardo Tocci, the company’s Data and Applied AI Practice Head, told the Herald that the company does not see AI reducing demand for young talent, but that the work and experience expected during the first years of employment are changing. This difference between total hiring, junior hiring, and early-career skill development is central to the public impact. It also shows why an exposure index should be treated as a starting point for labor-market investigation, not a complete forecast.
What to watch next
The next steps described by CESBA are interviews with companies, unions, and specialists to measure actual AI adoption, followed by dialogue involving employers, unions, and Buenos Aires City officials. Key unknowns include the study’s methodology, the underlying data’s date and sample, the distinction between task exposure and job displacement, and whether the reported changes in junior hiring are occurring broadly in Argentina.
CESBA’s proposed second stage will examine actual adoption through in-depth interviews with business associations, unions, and sector specialists, according to the Herald. That stage could clarify whether the index’s potential exposure scores correspond to deployed systems, planned adoption, or merely the nature of work tasks. It could also identify which occupations are experiencing changed workflows, reduced entry-level responsibilities, or increased demand for review and judgment. The supplied source does not say when those interviews will be completed or how their findings will be measured.
The proposed third stage would bring companies, unions, and Buenos Aires City government representatives together to develop recommendations for AI adoption. Socias told the Herald that CESBA is already speaking with the General Confederation of Labor and ILO representatives in Argentina, and that some unions have established their own AI laboratories. The practical questions are whether workers will have a meaningful role in deployment decisions, whether training will be funded, and whether productivity gains will translate into better incomes or simply higher output expectations.
Further reporting should test the study’s boundaries. The source does not provide the index formula, occupation-level scores, uncertainty ranges, underlying ILO tables, or the date on which the employment and urbanization figures were measured. It also does not independently confirm the 85% AI-adoption figure, the $10 billion export figure, the cited hiring plans, or the international evidence on junior workers. Those gaps matter because exposure, adoption, employment growth, and job quality are related but distinct measures.
The immediate public question is how Argentina’s service-heavy economy will manage the transition into work for younger people. The Herald reports that employers and unions disagree less about whether change is coming than about its form and consequences. Future evidence should therefore track entry-level vacancies, apprenticeship and trainee programs, task composition, wages, productivity, and the distribution of any employment gains. Until that evidence is available, the study supports concern about workforce transformation but does not support a precise prediction of job losses.