Twenty-three years ago, I walked off a stage with a master’s degree and into an economy that was rewriting itself.
Roles that had barely existed before suddenly roared into life: interactive designer or information architect. As a young consultant doing change management, I taught people how to use new technology and redefine their jobs around it. Though some jobs were eliminated.
During that time, curious leaders hired curious people because curiosity was the only credential that kept up with the pace of change.
This year, my cousin turns 23, the same age I was when I walked off that stage. He graduated last year and luckily started his first job this spring. Many in his graduating class are still looking.
Per U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates hit 5.6% in March 2026, well above the 4.3% national rate, and 41.5% of them are underemployed.
The story everyone keeps telling is that AI is taking those jobs, and certainly the boos at three recent commencements when AI was mentioned reinforces how palpable that narrative feels.
But the leaders deciding to cut jobs—cost savings with AI as the rationale—are short sighted. They haven’t yet noticed something important about this graduating class: they’re the most AI-fluent people in the building, and they’re being filtered out before they get to walk in the door.
What’s actually happening
It’s true that AI is automating real work. In my own field, experience research, strategy, and design, clients are already in-housing with AI some of what they used to hire firms like mine to do. Some roles will disappear in moments like this.
But disappearance was never the dominant story. When I helped roll out enterprise tech across back-office finance and operations twenty years ago, whole new categories of work showed up.
Today, the picture is mixed. Littler’s May 2026 Annual Employer Survey of more than 300 U.S. executives found only 37% have reassessed job responsibilities in light of AI’s efficiency gains. Two-thirds haven’t done the redesign work. Twenty percent are reducing or planning to reduce hiring in response to AI, and 15% are doing the same with workforce reductions.
Clearly, meaningful role redesign isn’t happening at scale. The companies getting the moment right are rebuilding their roles around the new technology. Those that aren’t are just cutting headcount and calling it transformation.
But when companies use AI to rationalize headcount cuts without rebuilding what’s left, the cost isn’t that they’re hiring fewer people. Instead, they’re cutting the rung whose practical expertise should feed their AI strategy.
