Admin assistant jobs: A scrappy workforce harnesses AI

With their numbers already in decline, secretaries and administrative assistants face another growing threat: artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Claude that can accomplish aspects of their workload with a tap.

Employment projection data offers a grim outlook for the women-dominated profession that may be particularly vulnerable to AI-induced job displacement compared to the broader workforce in the United States.

But some admins are embracing the technology — and even using it as a tool to get ahead.

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“All you do is have to evolve,” says Deanna Danger, 43.

Experimenting with AI can help

Danger has worked in an administrative role since 2003. Adapting is a key part of her constantly changing role, and AI is no exception.

Danger started using AI professionally in 2022, learning through experimentation and collaboration with fellow admins.

Today, she no longer takes notes during meetings — she’s set up Copilot and ChatGPT to do it for her. That has freed her to “actually participate in the meetings and not just worry about making sure I typed everything out that was said.” Danger serves as the executive assistant to the chief information officer at Vanderbilt University.

“Honestly, what used to take me hours I’m now done with in under five minutes.”

Dwindling before AI entered the picture

How — and to what extent — AI might reshape her profession remains to be seen. But jobs for administrative assistants and secretaries have been dwindling for decades.

In 2004, about 3.5 million people worked in the role in the United States, according to Current Population Survey data. Nearly 97% were women.

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Twenty years later, that number slid to 2.1 million — despite overall workforce growth during the same period.

And except for medical secretaries and administrative assistants — a category projected to grow 4% by 2034 thanks to growth of the healthcare industry — economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict a continued decline in the profession.

Tech advances that changed occupations

The unemployment rate for office and administrative support workers ticked up to 4% compared to 3.6% in June last year, according to Labor Department data released Thursday, July 2. This category also includes accounting clerks, postal service workers and more.

hat level remains lower than the overall unemployment rate.

“The overall story in office and admin occupations from the projection standpoint for the last several cycles has been one of productivity-enhancing technologies, limiting demand for employment,” said Emily Rolen. She’s the lead economist for the division of employment projections at the BLS.

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Technological advances — word processing, speech-to-text transcription, scheduling tools and apps — each transformed administrative work.

55 and older in admin assistant jobs

Clerical and administrative workers may be more exposed to AI-induced job displacement than other professionals because they “lack adaptive capacity due to limited savings, advanced age, scarce local opportunities, and/or narrow skill sets,” according to a Brookings Institution report published in January.

About 86% of these 6 million workers are women.

Indeed, more secretaries and administrative assistants are 55 and older compared to the workforce at large (34% vs. 23%). Median pay is lower than that of all U.S. workers ($47,460 vs. $49,500). A high school diploma is sufficient for many entry-level roles.

More capable than people think

But what labor data doesn’t capture — as noted by the Brookings report — is an individual’s ability to navigate a changing environment. Administrative assistants like Danger say they “are way more capable than people think.”

Danger hosts a biweekly virtual coffee chat through the American Society of Administrative Professionals, a professional group that serves about 132,000 members.

Participants in a May 2026 session shared their AI use cases: creating flyers, scouting out restaurants for executive events, writing captions for employer social media accounts, drafting standard operating procedure language, and more.

Admin assistant jobs: Relationship-building

But despite the overall atmosphere of enthusiasm, some participants raised concerns, including data security and the lack of AI regulation.

Others emphasized that AI cannot replace the emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills that are hallmarks of a successful admin.

Fiona Young, founder of Carve, a business focused on training executive assistants on AI, says she has seen “a massive shift in demand” for her services since 2023.

Young, a former executive assistant herself, says she has delivered AI training to administrative professionals globally, including at Google, Amazon, Uber, Salesforce, and LinkedIn.

In her experience, employers want staff to be able to leverage AI — “not just loosely understanding it but genuinely using it as an integral part of how people are working every day,” she says.

Focus on the ‘human work’

Oana Manolache takes an even stronger stance.

The founder and CEO of Sequel.io, a platform that enables companies to host webinars on their own websites, wrote in a LinkedIn post last year: “I will fire anyone who doesn’t use AI.”

But even Manolache says AI could not replace her executive assistant, Stephanie Martinez.

Manolache says Martinez uses AI to “free herself” from tasks like notetaking and meeting prep. That way, she can focus on the “human work” of building team connectivity, making judgment calls, understanding executives’ relationships with stakeholdersm and communicating.

Working remotely in admin assistant jobs

Maybe AI could supplant the “traditional” assistant, but “it doesn’t replace what an executive assistant does now as the role has evolved,” Manolache says.

Martinez works remotely from El Salvador through Viva Talent, which trains and matches assistants from Latin and South America to primarily U.S. tech companies.

“The people who truly want to succeed in this role have a massive opportunity,” Manolache says. “This person has access to information across the entire organization.”

‘Think creatively’ and implement

When the company aimed to drive more customer reviews on a software review platform, Martinez, who manages most invoices and billing, approached the problem innovatively.

She leveraged AI to sift through all customer communications, pinpoint good candidates for reviews, and draft outreach emails. Without AI, “it would have taken her so long to do this,” Manolache says. AI also freed up Martinez to “think creatively.”

That freedom to strategically implement AI is just as important as education and training.

Many assistants are interested in adopting AI but lack the bandwidth to incorporate it, says Melissa Peoples, an Austin, Texas-based executive assistant coach.

Early adopters and empowering execs

Gender dynamics compound that challenge in an industry dominated by women who are often paired with male leaders, Peoples says.

“You see those that are early adopters, and are crushing it, and are partnered with really empowering executives, and can do all of these things,” she says.

“And then you see the other side of this, where assistants are being told, ‘You’re not smart enough to be in the room. Just bring me my coffee.’”

With effective AI training, Peoples says admins can “find their voice”. They can “have a higher impact so they are protected against what is going to happen as agentic AI becomes more accessible.” (AP)

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