Investing.com -- Artificial intelligence is beginning to leave a visible mark on U.S. labor markets, but the macroeconomic impact remains small and concentrated among younger workers, according to a new Morgan Stanley analysis.

Analyst Michael Gapen said the firm's new AI disruption tracker points to "early, narrow AI displacement" that is more visible at the micro level than in aggregate data.

"AI is not yet a macro labor story, but it is no longer invisible," Gapen wrote.

Morgan Stanley found that unemployment in high-AI-exposure occupations looks above normal, but the implied drag on the overall unemployment rate amounts to at most around 10 basis points.

Industry-level payroll data is said to show no clear evidence of AI-related displacement, with employment in more AI-exposed sectors holding up or even outperforming.

The clearest signal is emerging among younger workers, according to the bank.

Morgan Stanley explained that early-career employees in highly AI-exposed roles have seen unemployment rise more sharply since 2023, alongside a modest increase in layoff flows and longer spells of joblessness.

"Not only are more young workers in exposed roles losing jobs, but they are also taking longer to find new ones," Gapen noted.

Morgan Stanley also found evidence that AI is reshaping the nature of work before meaningfully reducing the number of workers employed, with task reconfiguration occurring within roles across medium- and high-exposure occupations.

On the longer-term outlook, the firm said its base case aligns with historical experience from prior innovation waves, expecting generative AI to be "a net labor-augmenting technology — disruptive in the near term, but ultimately supportive of higher productivity and real wages."