Opportunities and Challenges of AI for Black Workers in the Rural South

The report, Opportunities and Challenges of AI for Black Workers in the Rural South, examines how artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and data center development are reshaping economic opportunities and challenges for Black workers in the rural South. It also explores the risks facing Black rural workers and outlines policy recommendations to ensure communities benefit from technological advancement.

We are at a critical crossroads, as conversations about how ‘rural America’ can benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution taking shape across industries continue to largely ignore the Black rural workforce. Both AI data center growth and Black rural workers are concentrated in the South, making it critical that we understand the issues at the center of the AI and automation revolution unfolding in Black rural communities. Black workers are overrepresented in 17 of the 30 occupations most vulnerable to automation (13.7 percent vs. 12.3 percent of the general population in fields such as manufacturing, food service, and security) while being underrepresented in the lowest-risk careers. The time is now to position municipalities to act in the best interest of Black residents in rural areas to minimize negative impacts of data centers and maximize opportunities for rural residents to reskill and upskill. Opportunities exist for residents and industries to collaborate and create mutually beneficial agreements that consider the cultural, environmental, and economic priorities of rural residents while including them in the AI success story. We conducted interviews with various workforce, education, and training professionals primarily in Alabama and the following key themes emerged:

• Curiosity: Black rural workers are eager to understand AI’s potential, driven partly by fear of being left behind, and workforce programs have found that hands-on exposure quickly builds confidence and reveals practical business applications.
• Caution: Communities are wary, given histories of broken promises and environmental racism, and have specific concerns about data centers’ impact on health, water resources, electricity as well as, and whether promised jobs and economic mobility will actually materialize. There is also concern that rural voices and data are underrepresented in the datasets shaping AI systems.
• Culture: AI-driven land acquisition and infrastructure development threaten to erode the cultural fabric of Black rural communities, many of whom have held generational land ties, forcing residents to adapt to disruptive changes in their daily lives and surroundings.
• Collaboration: Residents want to be active partners rather than passive recipients in AI’s revolution, with transparency and community-driven programming identified as key to reducing hesitancy and ensuring initiatives reflect local needs.

This report recommends Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs), legally binding agreements between communities and private industry, as the central mechanism for protecting Black rural workers while sharing the benefits of technological growth. Economically, CBAs should limit corporate tax breaks and require direct profit-sharing or guaranteed community payouts; on employment, companies should partner with local workforce organizations, build local hiring pipelines, and fund upskilling in AI-economy skills. Environmental provisions should cap water and electricity usage, protect against noise and light pollution, and incentivize renewable energy adoption, while educational commitments should expand AI literacy, fund community training hubs, and integrate AI education into K-12 and higher ed. Finally, the report stresses that these protections are meaningless without enforcement, calling for local advisory boards, penalties for non-compliance, and replicable best-practice templates to hold companies accountable. Policymakers, industry representatives, and community leaders can seize opportunities presented by this new technology for rural residents to become participants and beneficiaries and not another story of gentrification.

Read the report here.