Career Risk · 6 min read
How It Works
How the Assessment Actually Works
A clear explanation of how your score is calculated, how risk is measured, and how future projections are modelled.
The Five Dimensions
What we actually measure
Five weighted dimensions that together determine your structural position in the AI economy. Each one captures a different layer of how work is changing, from the tasks that automate first to the authority and signal that decide who gets paid more for the same role. The weights are fixed, published, and versioned in our Methodology so every score can be reproduced and audited.
25%
Strategic Clarity
Direction, decisions, what you say no to. The dimension that most determines structural altitude.
20%
Income Leverage
How the value you create is captured: salary, performance fees, equity, ownership. Determines who absorbs the AI productivity gain.
20%
AI Adaptability
Whether AI tooling is your collaborator, your competitor, or your replacement. How much of your week you direct versus produce.
20%
Skill Resilience
Transferability of your capability stack across tools, employers, and adjacent industries. Lock-in score, inverted.
15%
Market Alignment
Whether your role's industry and category are appreciating or compressing under AI pressure right now.
01
Scoring Methodology
Deterministic Weighted Scoring
The AI Career Index uses a fixed, rule-based scoring system. Every question maps to one of five structural dimensions and carries a defined weight. Each answer is pre-scored from 0 to 100 based on positioning research. Your results are calculated directly from your inputs.
Your overall Index Score is the weighted sum of all five dimensions, scaled to 0–1000. Higher-weight dimensions influence the final score more strongly, reflecting their importance in the AI labour market.
02
Normalisation
Dimension Score Normalisation (0–100)
Each dimension is calculated independently on a 0–100 scale. Raw scores are divided by the maximum possible score for that dimension and normalised. These dimension scores are then combined using a locked weighting structure:
Strategic Clarity25%
Income Leverage20%
AI Adaptability20%
Skill Resilience20%
Market Alignment15%
03
Authority Band
Authority Band Classification
Authority Band reflects the level of structural influence you operate within. It is calculated from Strategic Clarity (40%), Income Leverage (35%), and AI Adaptability (25%). This maps to four defined bands:
Execution0–44
Influence limited to task and performance execution within defined systems.
Integration45–64
Influence across workflows. Limited decision authority.
Strategic65–79
Influence over structural decisions, priorities, and resource allocation.
Authority80–100
System-level influence across multiple nodes, including capital and signalling power.
04
Compression Exposure
Compression Exposure Index (CEI)
The Compression Exposure Index measures how vulnerable your career structure is to automation pressure and authority compression. It combines your average dimension score, penalties for weak dimensions, authority fragility, and structural clustering effects.
CEI ranges from 0–100. Risk bands: Low (0–29), Moderate (30–54), Elevated (55–74), High (75–100).
For a broader explanation of how AI job replacement risk is evaluated across industries, see our AI Job Replacement Risk analysis.
05
Projection Modelling
Drift vs Strategic Path
Two 24-month structural paths are modelled. The Drift Path estimates what happens if nothing changes, applying a CEI-weighted decline. The Strategic Path models what becomes possible if key structural constraints are deliberately addressed.
These are directional models, not predictions. They show the structural gap between passive continuation and intentional correction.
06
Structural Logic
Why Structure Matters More Than Skills
Most career advice focuses on adding skills. Structural positioning focuses on how skills, authority scope, income architecture, market alignment, and direction combine to create leverage, or reduce it.
In an AI-driven economy, high skill alone is not protection. Structural alignment determines durability.
Outputs
What your reading actually contains
Three headline outputs you receive on the free tier, each computed deterministically from your assessment inputs. The full Premium report adds the structural archetype, migration probability, and 6-month plan.
Composite Index Score
742 / 1000
Weighted combination of all five dimensions. The headline number that summarises your structural position in the AI economy.
Authority Band
Strategic
Where your influence sits structurally. Execution, Integration, Strategic, or Authority. Predicts the next plausible move.
24-Month Projection
612 → 822
Two structural paths modelled: Drift (no intervention) versus Strategic (Acceleration Plan executed). Same scoring scale.
Methodology
Why we use rules, not AI, for the score
Most career tools score you with machine-learning models. That sounds modern and is exactly what makes them unreliable for the kind of decision the assessment exists to inform.
How most career tools work
- Probabilistic models trained on historical data
- Output varies between runs, even with identical inputs
- Logic is opaque. You can't audit how a score was reached
- Re-training shifts the entire scale; old readings become incomparable
- Vulnerable to bias inherited from the training corpus
How AI Career Index works
- Deterministic, rule-based scoring across five fixed dimensions
- Same inputs → same outputs, every single time
- Every weight and rule is published in the methodology
- Versioned: when the model changes, the version label changes
- No machine learning, no survey data, no probabilistic inference
Reproducibility is the precondition for taking a structural reading seriously. If the score moved between runs, it could not be used to make a decision against. Read the full Methodology.
FAQ
Common questions about how it works
The questions visitors ask most often before they take the assessment. Each answer points back to the methodology and the projection model.
Framework · 7 min read
How the AI Career Index Works
A step-by-step look at how the AI Career Index turns a short assessment into a structural score, your primary constraint, a 24-month projection, and a six-month plan.
Framework · 7 min read
Is the AI Career Index Accurate?
What accuracy means for a structural career reading, how the AI Career Index is grounded in real labour data, and what it can and cannot tell you.
"Asked my whole team of twelve to run the assessment. The workforce reading surfaced two roles where we had structural drift we were about to lose to competitors. We repositioned both before the gap showed up in performance numbers. Forty-nine dollars per person is the most asymmetric operational spend I have made this year."
Michael Anderson
Managing Partner · Chicago, USA
"The framework talks about the middle of the authority stack hollowing out, and I realised I was sitting in exactly that position. The migration path it recommended felt obvious in retrospect but had been invisible to me. I moved on it the following quarter."
Elena Ricci
Senior Account Director · Milan, Italy
"I run a team of data analysts and wanted to understand which of my reports were at structural risk. The workforce reading made the compression visible, team by team. Two weeks later I restructured scope assignments and the team is already doing higher-leverage work."
Kwame Addo
Head of Data · Nairobi, Kenya
Measure Your Position with AI Career Index
Take the AI Career Snapshot to see your structural leverage, automation exposure, and growth trajectory with AI Career Index.