Future of work speaker Carl Benedikt Frey is a Swedish-German economist, economic historian, and author. He is based at Oxford University. There, he directs the programme on the Future of Work 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 with support from Citigroup. Between 2012 and 2014, he was teaching at the Department of Economic History at Lund University.

In 2012, speaker Carl Benedikt Frey became an Economics Associate of Nuffield College. Additionally, he became Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both University of Oxford. He remains a Senior Fellow of the Department of Economic History at Lund University. And also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). 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 in 2020, he became 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. He estimates that 47% of jobs are at risk of automation. With over 6.000 citations, the study’s methodology is very popular. For example, President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors used it. Additionally, the Bank of England, the World Bank, as well as a popular risk-prediction tool by the BBC. In 2019, the paper was debated 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. Those include the G20, the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, and several Fortune 500 companies. He is also an op-ed contributor to several media outlets. Among them, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs and Scientific American. Also, on the Wall Street Journal, where he has written on the economics of artificial intelligence, the history of technology, and the future of work.

His academic work has featured in over 100 media outlets. The Economist, Bloomberg, The Guardian, New York Times, Time Magazine, Le Monde, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung featured him. 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, was selected a Financial Times Best Books of the Year in 2019.