Carl-Benedikt Frey is the Dieter Schwarz Associate Professor of AI & Work at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Fellow of Mansfield College, University of Oxford. He is also Director of the Future of Work Programme and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at the Oxford Martin School.
After studying economics, history, and management at Lund University, Frey completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in 2011. He subsequently joined the Oxford Martin School where he founded the programme on the Future of Work. Between 2012 and 2014, he was teaching at the Department of Economic History at Lund University.
In 2012, Frey became an Economics Associate of Nuffield College and Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both University of Oxford. He remains an Associate Fellow of the Department of Economic History at Lund University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2019, he joined the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee. And between 2020 and 2022, he was a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) – a multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, hosted by the OECD.
In 2013, Frey co-authored The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization. With over 12,000 citations, the study’s methodology has been used by President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, the Bank of England, the World Bank, as well as the popular automation risk-prediction tool of the BBC. In 2019, the paper also featured on the Last Week Tonight Show with John Oliver.
Frey has served as an advisor and consultant to international organisations, think tanks, government, and business, including the G20, the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, and several Fortune 500 companies. He is also an op-ed contributor to the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, and the Wall Street Journal, where he has written on the economics of artificial intelligence, the history of technology, the future of cities, and remote work.
His academic work has featured in over 100 media outlets, including The Economist, New York Times, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Le Monde, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In addition, he has frequently appeared international broadcast media such as CNN, BBC, PBS News Hour, Al Jazeera, and Sky News.
His most recent book, The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation, was selected a Financial Times Best Books of the Year in 2019, when it also won Princeton University’s prestigious Richard A. Lester Prize.
Economics of AI, Future of Work, History of Technology, Innovation Policy, Urbanization and the Internet, Economic Growth, Political Economy
Industrial Organization and AI, Remote Work and Cities, Innovation and the Internet, Automation and Populism, Political Economy of Technological Change, Work and Democracy
29 November 2023
A research team led by the universities of Oxford and Pittsburgh has documented the rise of remote collaborations among scientists and inventors across the world and reported that remote teams are less likely to make breakthrough discoveries.
27 October 2023
The OII is leading the debate on Artificial Intelligence. Generative AI has been a key area of interest for faculty, researchers and students for many years. This article brings together some of this work to date and highlights forthcoming work.
18 September 2023
In a new study, Oxford experts say that while Generative AI has increased the scope of automation further, it will also make many jobs easier to do for people with lower skills.
26 June 2023
Autocratic states were less effective at responding to the pandemic, despite enforcing stringent policy measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, according to a new study from academics at the University of Oxford.
Time Magazine, 09 April 2025
But rather than enticing companies to create new jobs in the U.S., economists say, the new tariffs—bolstered by recent advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics—could instead increase incentives for companies to automate human labour.
Financial Times, 03 April 2025
The geographic pattern of digital dislocation’s impact may be very different from that of previous waves of automation.
Project Syndicate, 11 March 2025
By allowing workers in lower-income countries to provide services to customers in advanced economies, generative AI and remote work platforms could fundamentally reshape the global economy.
DPhil Student
Johanna is a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute specialising in the political economy of AI. She explores AI’s impact on the future of work, combining economic insights with machine learning.
DPhil Student
Anniki is a DPhil Information, Communication, and Social Sciences student and a Shirley Scholar at the OII. Anniki's research focuses on the governance of digital infrastructures with a particular focus on cable networks.
