One Quarter of Czech Work Is Exposed to AI. What Happens Next?

Czechia now has one of the clearest official estimates of how artificial intelligence intersects with its labour market. Research published by the Czech National Bank in July finds that 23.2% of occupational tasks can be performed, supported or transformed by current AI systems. That is not a forecast that one quarter of Czech jobs will disappear. It is a map of where work is most likely to change.

The distinction has become especially important as warnings from frontier-AI researchers push public debate toward extreme future scenarios. For Czech employers, the immediate economic story is measurable: AI adoption is already high, and exposure is concentrated in precisely the urban, skilled and information-heavy parts of the economy that have driven Prague's growth.

Prague and higher-paid knowledge work are more exposed

The CNB finds exposure concentrated in larger urban areas, information-intensive sectors and higher-wage jobs. That makes Prague structurally different from regions where employment is more concentrated in physical production or occupations requiring on-site work.

Text processing, administration, analysis, communication, classification and information search are among the task types most naturally affected by current generative systems. The result is counterintuitive: workers with more education and higher salaries can have greater technical exposure than many lower-paid workers whose jobs require physical presence.

Czech companies are already adopting faster than much of Europe

The CNB brief cites EIB data showing that nearly half of Czech firms reported using generative AI in 2025, compared with an EU average of 37% and the highest share among Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European countries in that dataset.

That creates an opportunity to convert adoption into productivity, but it also means Czech management teams need better evidence about where AI actually saves time. Buying licences is not the same as improving output. The strongest gains are likely to come where workflows, data and responsibilities are redesigned around the technology.

The next question is distribution, not just productivity

If AI raises productivity, the gains can appear as higher wages, greater profits, lower prices, more output or fewer hours of labour. Which outcome dominates will vary by sector and bargaining power. Entry-level knowledge work deserves particular attention because many junior tasks involve research, drafting and information processing.

Czech Business Review's view is that the CNB's 23.2% estimate should be treated as a baseline for workforce planning, not a redundancy target. Employers that preserve training pathways while automating low-value tasks are more likely to build durable capability than companies that remove junior roles before understanding what future senior talent will need to learn.