Automation is the process of replacing human work with machines and aims to make certain tasks in the workplace more efficient. This article reviews the effects of the link between automation and artificial intelligence (AI) on people’s work. In principle, the constant improvement of AI and its ever-wider use have favoured the automation of an increasing number of tasks, particularly non-routine tasks traditionally performed only by people. This has meant that many occupations, both low- and high-skilled, as well as many workers, are in danger of being replaced after losing the race with technology. However, a review of the effects, based on the level of skills, occupations, and workers, indicates that automation is still focused on replacing routine and low-skilled tasks and occupations. If automation and AI can boost productivity to the point where new and better jobs are created and if workers acquire the skills to interact with AI, a future of enhanced work, of agreement between people and machines, is also possible.

On the occasion of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), the authors take the opportunity to reflect on the recent evolution of the labour market in Spain and its labour relations, as well as its future challenges. A period that begins with a long phase of expansion of the Spanish economy and ends with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the middle, events with a relevant economic and labour effect such as (i) the relocation that has accompanied globalization, (ii) the migratory movements that have rendered us a host country, (iii) the violent impact that the Great Recession that began in 2008 and the pandemic of 2020, as well as (iv) the process of technological and digital transformation in which we are immersed. Despite this, the article does not have a vocation for the past and stops in the analysis on two great challenges. Job quality, a challenge that has been present in the last twenty-five years and that, far from being resolved, has become more urgent. And the digitization of employment, the great test of the Spanish economy and society that may be a turning point in our employment structure.