Artificial intelligence (AI) presents Pakistan with a historic opportunity for it to leapfrog economic mismanagement and take its position at the global frontier in critical areas. It is also likely to make millions of workers in an economy where over 70% of its employment is informal, and skills training is still underdeveloped redundant. The sectors most disruptable by AI, textiles, agriculture, logistics and low-end services, happen to be the sectors that employ in quantity the bulk of Pakistan’s labour supply. Without being targeted with policy and planning, AI adoption may deepen unemployment, increase inequality, and destabilize precarious labour markets.

These systems save money and bring accuracy but risk making millions obsolete low-skilled garment workers

The challenge is therefore laid bare in Pakistan’s textile industry, the biggest earner of exports and industrial employment. AI-enabled technologies, machine fabric evaluation, predictive maintenance, and even robotic stitching are picking up steam around the world and are starting to enter Pakistan’s mills. These systems save money and bring accuracy but risk making millions obsolete low-skilled garment workers. The same dynamic can be seen in agriculture, where the application of precision farming via drones, AI driven irrigation, and robotic harvesters, is destroying rural labourers’ livelihoods. Between these two, they make up close to half the employment in the country and so the displacement threat becomes systemic and far reaching.

Logistics and transportation situation is not less alarming. Although Pakistan has not yet rolled out self-driving trucks at scale, the tides globally are made apparent: Route optimisation for the AI, autonomous vehicles, automated warehousing are becoming the norm within the developed economies. As these technologies spread through the country, Pakistan’s 200,000+ truck drivers, delivery agents, and warehouse workers could be replaced by machines which do not have to rest, and pay wages, or pay health insurance. Even in urban services, jobs in customer support and back-office operations are under pressure. AI-powered chatbots and automated service desks are already handling tasks once performed by thousands of call centre agents.

Pakistan’s Information Technology sector is one of the few areas where AI is creating more jobs than it displaces

Yet amid this disruption lies an equally powerful opportunity. Pakistan’s Information Technology sector is one of the few areas where AI is creating more jobs than it displaces. The demand for AI engineers, data scientists, and machine learning specialists is growing rapidly. However, this new labour market is closed to most Pakistanis due to the country’s severe digital and educational divide. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has noted that most youth lack even basic ICT proficiency. Women and rural youth are even more disadvantaged, concentrated in low-end clerical roles that are the first to be automated.

This is not just a technological challenge, it is a governance one. If AI is allowed to spread without a coordinated skills response, Pakistan may enter a phase of jobless growth, where economic gains accrue to capital owners and tech-savvy elites, while the majority see their employment prospects vanish. A reactive policy stance, one that waits until jobs are lost to act, will only intensify the social fallout. The World Bank and International Labor Organisation (ILO) have both warned that delayed interventions in labour markets undergoing automation tend to increase inequality, erode public trust, and reduce the absorptive capacity of economies to integrate new technologies.

A core recommendation is to treat AI not merely as a technological upgrade, but as a catalyst for human capital development

But a more optimistic future is still within reach. Pakistan can choose to manage AI integration in a way that protects livelihoods and promotes upward mobility. A core recommendation is to treat AI not merely as a technological upgrade, but as a catalyst for human capital development. Targeted reskilling programs, developed in collaboration with industry, can equip workers with competencies in AI system operation, digital freelancing, and data analytics. Mobile skill labs, female-oriented digital training, and Urdu-based AI curricula can democratise access and ensure that no region or group is left behind.

By integrating inclusion into the AI transition in Pakistan, proposed by the authors, the worst-case scenarios experienced elsewhere can be avoided

What is more, the firms can be encouraged to use “semi-automation” models where the human workers are in the loop, but are augmented by AI rather than replaced by it. Such training can be offered through government institutions such as NAVTEC and TEVTA, on a short-term, high impact basis. Policies should also have the safety nets. Training vouchers, commercial subsidies for internet usage and job matching platforms for workers that have been displaced. By integrating inclusion into the AI transition in Pakistan, proposed by the authors, the worst-case scenarios experienced elsewhere can be avoided, massive layoffs, without a growth strategy to absorb the unemployed.

It is not how fast AI will spread, but how intelligently Pakistan gets ready for it that would define the situation

Pakistan’s choice is stark. It has the choice to accept AI as a shared prosperity tool or to turn it into an exclusion power. The trajectory so far indicates that both possibilities are for now still open. It is not how fast AI will spread, but how intelligently Pakistan gets ready for it that would define the situation. At this point of transformation the task is not so much to embrace AI, though it is to make sure that the fruits of this technological revolution will be evenly and equally distributed.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.