- AI is preventing Gen Z workers from getting entry level jobs
- Many AI agents can perform the tasks typically done by new workers
- Meta and Salesforce AI exec Clara Shih wants to help, using AI
Gen Z workers who have spent the last two decades training for a world that no longer has use of their skills are finding it harder and harder to enter the workforce.
Clara Shih, former AI executive at Meta and Salesforce, has seen this first hand. She watched her top talent beaten by AI agents time and time again. “In that moment I knew that nothing would ever be the same,” she told Fortune. “You feel radicalized in that moment when you see it working.”
Now, she is helping equip Gen Z with the skills necessary to survive in an AI-dominated world. “I realized that the only way to help people keep up with the pace of AI was to give them AI tools,” she explained. “Because if you use the traditional ways…it’s just not fast enough to keep pace with how quickly AI is advancing”
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Entry level radicalization
American citizens are facing one of the greatest disruptions to the job market in recent history, with thousands losing jobs to AI replacements, and new entrants to the job market finding the skills they have acquired through their education are no longer relevant.
In order to make a living, many Gen Z graduates are turning to alternative forms of making money, including gig work, or going back into education to learn vocational skills less threatened by the rise of AI.
To help Gen Z find their place in the modern world, Shih has set up a nonprofit organization, the New Work Foundation, alongside a consumer facing brand, Dear CC, that helps job seekers find work in their sectors of expertise using AI.
The Dear CC site displays a message on the front page: “You did the work. You got the diploma. The economy moved. This is not your fault — but it is your future, and you can own it.”
AI sentiment was once highly optimistic, with many expecting it to help solve problems – not cause them. Almost half of Gen Z polled in a recent NBC survey said they want to live in the past, with some referencing AI as a specific reason for their feelings. More widely, another NBC poll found that almost half (46%) of registered US voters have a negative view of AI.
Other polls, including a Checkr survey, have found widespread fears of the effects of AI, with 79% of respondents worrying that if their company adopted AI it would result in pay cuts.
There is also growing opposition to the building of data centers that AI relies on to handle its workload, and a growing number of people, including political leaders, who are calling for greater protections on AI development.
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benedict.collins@futurenet.com (Benedict Collins)
