AI in Career Guidance: Opportunities, Risks and Ethical Boundaries

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in career guidance through chatbots, recommender systems, predictive analytics and interactive platforms. These tools may improve access and personalisation, but career guidance is not a neutral information service. It can influence how people understand their skills, their future options and their sense of agency. This article provides a narrative review and normative analysis of recent academic, professional and regulatory sources on AI-assisted career guidance. The discussion focuses on opportunities, risks and ethical boundaries, with particular attention to human oversight, personal data, fairness, transparency and the distinction between career discovery and career decision-making. The literature suggests that AI can expand access to guidance, support lifelong learning, connect users with changing labour-market information and make exploration more interactive. At the same time, the evidence base remains uneven. Important risks include biased or outdated data, privacy and secondary use of personal data, hallucinated or weakly verified outputs, narrow recommendation loops, automation bias and the possible weakening of the human relationship in guidance. Concluding, ethical AI in career guidance requires more than enthusiasm for innovation. It requires explainable outputs, data minimisation, quality control, practitioner involvement, user contestability, AI literacy and clear human responsibility. The article argues that the most important boundary is the line between career discovery and career decision. AI systems that help users explore possibilities may be valuable; systems that substantially determine educational or employment outcomes require stricter governance and human oversight.