AI Might Be Wiping Out Entry-Level Jobs — and Changing the Ones That Survive | Behind the Numbers

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Episode: AI Might Be Wiping Out Entry-Level Jobs — and Changing the Ones That Survive
Date: May 26, 2026
Host: Marcus
Guests: Grace Harmon (West Coast Analyst, AI/Tech), Gajo Sevilla (Senior Analyst, New York)

This episode explores the growing concern that AI is transforming or even eliminating entry-level jobs, with a specific focus on the marketing and technology sectors. The discussion centers on whether AI is truly "wiping out" early-career positions, how the nature of jobs is shifting, the broader impact across all career levels, and how both employers and employees are handling (or resisting) these changes. The episode also delves into the psychological toll of rapid AI adoption and the emerging backlash among workers, especially Gen Z.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Is AI Wiping Out Entry-Level Jobs?

[02:41 – 05:28]

• Current State: AI is automating many routine, junior-level tasks, compressing the traditional career ladder for new graduates. However, some major companies (e.g., Reddit, IBM) are still increasing entry-level hiring because they value "AI native" young talent.
• Higher Expectations: Entry-level roles now demand higher-level skills and the ability to deliver quality work immediately.
• Risks: Cutting back junior hiring weakens the future middle-management pipeline and institutional knowledge; companies may later rely more on expensive outside hires.

Quote — Grace Harmon [02:41]:
"There's a lot of compression of what the traditional career ladder used to look like when all these routine junior-level tasks are being automated… but companies still see value in hiring earlier-career talent because they're 'AI native'."

2. Contradictory Trends in Hiring

[04:01 – 07:40]

• Data Split: Some companies are hiring more juniors; others are freezing those hires, leading to fewer new grads landing jobs, especially in highly technical, AI-exposed fields (software development, customer service).
• Silent Freeze: Instead of layoffs, a “silent freeze” on hiring is happening, with fewer openings rather than more job cuts.
• Negative Trends: Unemployment for recent grads has doubled since pre-pandemic (from 3% to almost 6%). Vacancies for graduates fell 8% last year. 63% of execs say AI is replacing some entry-level work.

Quote — Gajo Sevilla [05:08]:
"What we're seeing, though, it's not through mass layoffs but more through a silent freeze on hiring new graduates."

3. Changing Nature of Surviving Jobs

[08:06 – 09:31]

• Job Redefinition: In fields like software, entry-level staff spend less time coding and more time designing, organizing, and supervising the AI-generated work.
• Pressure: Companies are shifting employees into AI-focused groups and increasing performance expectations. Layoffs sometimes accompany this shift, and the stock market responds differently depending on the company.

Quote — Marcus (citing Gustavo d’Souza) [08:53]:
"What if AI isn't coming for your job, but perhaps offering a career change instead?... Maybe it's the nature of the job that's changing rather than the job itself."

4. Impacts Beyond Entry-Level

[11:45 – 12:49]

• Widespread Impact: Though attention is on junior jobs, AI affects postings and opportunities for senior workers too; pre-ChapGPT trends show job declines across all levels in AI-exposed fields.
• Not Unique to Juniors: The difference is that reductions are more visible and impactful for entry-level, which is usually where new hires enter the organization.

5. The Marketer’s New Reality: Supervisory, Strategic, and (Still) Exhausting

[12:49 – 18:25]

• Not Fewer Jobs, but Different: Marketers aren't being laid off en masse due to AI; instead, their roles are becoming more supervisory—managing and overseeing AI-generated content, ensuring brand consistency, handling workflows.
• Rising Bar: Expectations around speed, complexity, and output have skyrocketed.
• AI Brain Fry: Marketers face “AI brain fry” — cognitive overload, fatigue, slower decision-making caused by the need to master, oversee, and integrate multiple AI tools.

Quote — Gajo Sevilla [13:37]:
"AI is making marketing jobs more supervisory... You're seeing marketers becoming less hands-on in production but still managing the agentic workflows and making sure the brand identity remains consistent."

Quote — Gajo Sevilla [15:10]:
"From the employee standpoint, it's just the cognitive load that they're expected to manage across all these new tools... it's a red flag on a number of levels."

Quote — Grace Harmon [16:48]:
"I thought strategic. You know, there's automation of tasks like campaign optimization and data analysis—so a lot of moving time away from repetitive tasks and toward higher-level ones that only a person can do, like creative direction and decision making."

6. Fatigue and the Need for Integration

[18:25 – 21:55]

• Tool Overload: The proliferation of disconnected AI tools increases worker fatigue, echoing earlier struggles with disparate business software.
• Integration as Antidote: Companies are starting to centralize AI tools into unified interfaces (e.g., Adobe in Slack, new Google AI/Integration).
• Consumer Overwhelm: Not just employees: consumers are experiencing AI fatigue, with the technology branded onto every product and service, further exacerbating the backlash.

Quote — Gajo Sevilla [20:50]:
"It's perception too, because we're just being bombarded with AI everything... At some point you hit the wall and you're like, what does this even mean? Because they're just using it as a marketing term."

7. The Backlash: Anxiety, Sabotage, and Employee Resistance

[21:55 – 26:54]

• AI Label Fatigue: AI is ubiquitously hyped (like “protein everything”), increasing skepticism and resistance.
• Backlash Building: Layoffs at major firms (Oracle, Block/Square) tied to “AI-first” strategies are ramping up worker anxiety. Gen Z especially is both anxious and angry about job displacement, heavier workloads, and shrinking opportunities.
• Sabotage: Writer (AI platform) surveys show that 44% of Gen Z and nearly as many overall admit to actively sabotaging their employers' AI initiatives.
• Public Concern: 70% of Americans believe AI advancements will decrease job opportunities. Nearly 80% are more concerned than excited about AI.
• Leadership Messaging: Execs aggravate concerns by touting job replacement without offering positive visions (e.g., retraining, social safety nets).
• Civil Unrest?: King’s College London reports one-third of university students fear rapid AI-driven job loss could trigger unrest.

Quote — Grace Harmon [22:52]:
"No, it is not a flash in the pan. Companies are not backing down... and people are getting more and more worried about how AI is going to affect their lives and their careers."

Quote — Marcus [28:02]:
"The combination of reported benefits and continued sabotage suggests that perceived personal risk outweighs utility. I think it's an excellent way to sum up what we've been talking about."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Career Ladder is Changing — Not Just Disappearing
  Grace Harmon [02:41]:
  "Entry-level roles are expected… a lot more early on. They're requiring these higher level skills from day one."
• Freeze, Not Just Fire
  Gajo Sevilla [05:08]:
  "It's not through mass layoffs but more through a silent freeze on hiring new graduates."
• Supervisory, Strategic Roles Replace Repetitive Tasks
  Gajo Sevilla [13:37]:
  "AI is making marketing jobs more supervisory." Grace Harmon [16:48]:
  "I thought strategic."
• AI Brain Fry is Real
  Gajo Sevilla [15:10]:
  "It's just the cognitive load… it's a red flag on a number of levels."
• One-Third of Students Fear Civil Unrest
  Marcus [27:00]:
  "One in three university students say AI will wipe out jobs so rapidly it will trigger civil unrest."
• Backlash and Sabotage on the Rise
  Grace Harmon [22:52]:
  "Gen Zers… about 44% have reported sabotaging their company's AI efforts."
• Perceived Risk Outweighs Utility
  Marcus [28:02]:
  "Perceived personal risk outweighs utility."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:41] – AI’s effect on entry-level jobs: compression vs. opportunity
• [05:08] – Trends in hiring: “Silent freeze” vs. layoffs; negative data for grads
• [08:53] – AI changing—not replacing—jobs: design, oversight, higher-level tasks
• [12:16] – Impact on senior as well as entry-level positions
• [13:37] – Marketing jobs: From production to supervisory/strategic roles
• [15:10] – “AI brain fry” and employee cognitive overload
• [18:25] – Software, tools, and integration challenges for employees
• [21:55] – AI fatigue among employees and consumers; rapid investment fueling overwhelm
• [22:52] – Backlash: Sabotage and growing resistance; Gen Z’s rising anxiety and anger
• [25:14] – Leadership messaging and the lack of positive narratives
• [27:00] – Civil unrest potential among students; public opinion and data highlights

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Conclusion

This episode underscores the complexity and contradictions of AI’s impact on the workforce, especially at the entry-level. While AI is clearly changing the nature of many roles (with new skills, expectations, and higher-level responsibilities), both young and experienced workers are feeling squeezed, overwhelmed, and, at times, resistant. As companies pursue "AI-first" strategies and press on with rapid technological adoption, they confront increasing employee anxiety, skepticism, and even active sabotage. The takeaway: the future of work in an AI-driven world is less about simple job replacement and more about transformation—of tasks, skills, and the psychological contract between employer and employee.

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Transcript

[Gajo Sevilla]

Foreign.

[Marcus]

It's Tuesday, May 26th. Grace Garj and listeners welcome in to behind the Numbers new marketer podcast. I'm Marcus and I hope everyone had nice long weekends. If you're in the US For Memorial Day, if you're in the UK Spring bank holiday, join me for today's conversation. We have two technology and AI experts based on the west coast. In California, it's analyst Grace Harmon.

[Grace Harmon]

Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me.

[Marcus]

Why, of course, of course. Also living on the other coast in New York, senior analyst Gajo Sevilla joins the show.

[Gajo Sevilla]

Hi, everybody. Happy to be here.

[Marcus]

Hey, fella. We start, of course, with today's fact. Right. The most visited countries in the world are. You guys can have a guess to see if you can get one of the top three. I've got the top 10 here.

[Grace Harmon]

United States, I would guess that's third. Okay.

[Gajo Sevilla]

France, 73 million people.

[Marcus]

France for the win, 102 million people. This is in 2024. France, number one most visited country in the world. The U.S. is third with 73 million. So in second place is

[Grace Harmon]

maybe Japan. Oh, Spain.

[Marcus]

Yes, Spain. Japan, ninth with 37 million. So it goes France, Spain, U.S. turkey in fourth. Dark horse. Italy in fifth, 58 million. Mexico, 45. The U.K. yes, 42 million. In seventh, Germany, Japan and Greece round out the top 10. Greece receives nearly four times as many tourists each year as it has residents. That's too many. Yeah, they probably hate that country's too beautiful. Thailand, sneaky in 11th. And Austria, little old Austria in 12th. All right, anyway, tis real topic. AI might be wiping out entry level jobs and changing the ones that survive. Will the bottom rung of the career ladder disappear? Concerns are growing about the impact of AI on graduate employment, explains a recent article from the Economist. Grace, I'll start with you for this one. In your opinion, is AI actually wiping out entry level jobs at this point?

[Grace Harmon]

I would say not across the board. I think that there's a lot of compression of what the traditional career ladder used to look when all of these routine junior level tasks are being automated. But a lot of companies do still see value in hiring earlier career talent like Reddit and IBM are both amping up entry level hiring. Reddit's CEO had been saying that they're trying to have a focus on hiring new college grads because they're AI native. So I think that there's a belief that younger workers are often more adaptable or already educated in AI workflows. I think one of the bigger shifts is that entry level roles are expected a Lot more early on. They're requiring these higher level skills from, from day one.

[Marcus]

Oh, interesting.

[Grace Harmon]

Yeah. I think, you know, the workers who can produce higher quality outputs earlier on in their career or faster changes what these companies are expecting from them. You know, one of the big issues is just if you're cutting back on junior hiring, you might be saving some money short term, but you're going to have a weaker future pipeline for middle management. You know, you're reducing institutional knowledge in terms of having diverse range of different ages and experience levels and you might have more reliance later on on expensive outside hires.

[Marcus]

Yeah, Kaja, it's hard to know exactly what's going on here because you do have data on both sides. There's to what Grace was saying. There are some companies saying no, we're hiring these entry level folks and companies do disagree with this narrative. There was a Wall Street Journal article noting that in one of the biggest surveys of employees on employers graduate hiring plans this year, nearly three times as many execs at companies using or exploring AI said they were increasing junior level hiring in 2026, then cutting back. According to Strada, however, two data points that support the notion that jobs with the most exposure to AI are suffering the most. Study by Erik Bjornjufsson of et al. Stanford University found those aged 22 to 25 working in the most AI exposed roles, software development, customer service, had seen double digit percentage decline in employment since 2022. And then also second one, an economist analysis looked at 10 years worth of survey data from National Associate and college and colleges and employers found that graduates in fields more exposed to AI suffering markedly worse outcomes. What do you think's going on?

[Gajo Sevilla]

I think it's well like what Gray said, I mean a lot of companies sort of tend to know to look at entry level as something that, that's a negotiable. And what we're seeing though, it's not through mass layoffs but more through a silent freeze on hiring new graduates.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Gajo Sevilla]

And you know that that causes a problem because you know, you have college, for example, from, from Yale, they're saying that unemployment from, from recent graduates has climbed to nearly 6% from pre pandemic 3% rates. That's almost, you know, double. Right. And if you're looking at these highly technical areas like computer science, they're really starting to feel it, you know, in that space.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Gajo Sevilla]

So for those that haven't been able to sort of diversify their skill sets ahead of this, it's difficult to sort of see a way in.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Gajo Sevilla]

And I think that's something that we'll continue to see unfortunately. But not right away. I mean it's going to be incremental.

[Marcus]

Yeah. To the point. You made a few really good ones here and I want to touch on a few. One of them, this kind of freezing in hiring rather than an increase in layoffs. Harvard University found the headcount of junior employees had fallen since early 2023 whilst out of higher had not. But in part because of this, we're not getting rid of people, we're just freezing hiring. And so naturally you're going to have less employees if that happens. Another thing you touched on here, the unemployment rate For Americans between 22 and 27 unemployment rate is now at its highest level since the pandemic, climbing just to just shy of 6% in Q1 of 2026. That would make it 33% higher than the national average. In 2019 it was almost exactly the same. And then there's just so much more data here to support that grads might be disproportionately affected. The Institute of Student Employers noted graduate vacancies fell 8% last year. And then some execs just kind of coming out and saying look, this is going on in 2025. LinkedIn survey, 63% of execs said AI would replace at least some of the work of entry level employees at their companies.

[Gajo Sevilla]

Yeah, you're seeing it from, you know, big tech companies who keep saying, oh, you know, this percent of our, our code is now written by AI. Right. And so that, that's a direct correlation to, to the workforce. Because who, who used to be handling, you know, all those code, all that code and all those commits that used to be the junior level developers maybe.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Gajo Sevilla]

And so now that's being automated areas where they, they still need people is to, to, to check that code. Right. If you want to be specific. Because you, you still need oversight. You can't ship something that, and I hope they don't ship code that's not vetted by, by human. The thing is with that scale of production you do need more ice on, on the products before you ship them. Right. So we are just hoping that they're the balancing kind of the increase in code creation and development with proper oversight from human coders.

[Grace Harmon]

Yeah, you're always going to need people

[Gajo Sevilla]

in the loop for sure.

[Grace Harmon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

Grace, is it fair to say that these jobs are really just changing? Gustavo d' Souza of the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago had this quote that's been kicked around a little bit saying what if it isn't coming, AI isn't coming for your job, but perhaps offering a career change in instead. Maybe not just a complete career change in terms of the job, but in terms of what the job entails. To what Gajo is saying, computer science grads, folks who are getting into coding, writing less code, but spending more time designing and organizing software systems at a higher level. So maybe it's the nature of the job as opposed to the actual job.

[Grace Harmon]

Yeah. And that isn't necessarily a question or an offer from your employer for looking at Meta recently, in addition to the layoffs that it has planned, pushed a lot of employees into AI groups and it wasn't a matter of a sign up sheet. There are really significant expectations that companies are having around these AI business pivots and some of that ends up being cuts. Cisco, Cloudflare recently they had great financial reports but they were doing layoffs and for one that led their stock to drop. For the other it didn't. So I think the market is a little bit split on whether making these cuts in the name of AI development is a positive sign of efficiency and productivity or whether that might be a sign of something more problematic under the surface.

[Marcus]

Yeah, there is a note as a piece of TechRadar Rohit Gupta, MD at Cognizant noting AI can help inexperienced marketers, entry level folks, focus on action rather than wrangling information from different systems. System saying junior staff develop skills and commercial understanding faster, increasing confidence and understanding of where their work fits in with a bigger organizational role. And Forbes contributor Bernard Marr saying entry level work is much more than the kind of low value administrators where people learn how the business works, how decisions are made, how expertise is built. And so Grace, what you were saying as well provides this pipeline potentially of future leaders at that company. It's interesting as well to see what's changing as a result of this. Two things are going on. One, students already changing course. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse shows undergraduate enrollment in computer science fell 11% in 2025. Enrollment in computer programming fell 26%. So some students just staying well away. And then the other thing here, one way to ascend the rungs, make your own ladder, says Joseph Fuller, a professor at Harvard Business School. So this idea that Gen Z folks much more likely to start because they're nervous about their career job prospects. And then also like we talk about entry level workers, but there is, I mean how much data have you guys seen about this actually affecting everyone? Because there was a paper published by two Economists at Google, which found job postings and AI exposed occupations have declined just as sharply for senior workers as for junior ones. And that trend, and also interestingly that that trend predated the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. University of Pittsburgh also found the same thing. This really an entry level workers problem or is this something we're seeing across the board?

[Gajo Sevilla]

I think it's across the board, but entry level is just more visible because you know, you, that could make up the majority of your new hires. Whereas more, more senior, more senior staff, you know, they've, they've been there for a long time. They're less likely to be directly affected just because they're not as hands on, you know, with the technology that's, that's replacing people as virtual co workers.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Let's talk a bit about how it's changing the actual job, especially the job of a marketer. There was a headline by Mark Stenberg of Adweek, AI isn't cutting marketing jobs, but it is making them harder. According to proprietary data prepared for Adweek, he says by the research firm Newton X. He says most organizations report little to no AI driven headcount reduction. At the same time, majority of marketers say their day to day responsibilities have already shifted. With expectations rising around speed, complexity and output. The findings suggest a new reality for the profession. AI may be expanding marketers capabilities, but it's also compressing timelines and raising the performance bar. Gajo, if you had to fill in the blank, what would you say here? AI is making marketing jobs more super

[Gajo Sevilla]

supervisory I think would be the word. I mean, okay, nice. You're, you're seeing them, you know, becoming less hands on in the, in the production process, but they're still there for maybe the, the creative brief. They're, they're managing the agentic workflows, making sure that the brand identity remains consistent, that they don't, you know, mishandle client information. All that, you know, is still very necessary. And as they scale and take on more clients for more campaigns, sure, the work can multiply. Right. And, but at the end of the day you still have to go over all of that and all of that output and make sure that it's something that you, you want to put out there. So that's where they need the expertise.

[Marcus]

Yeah, I want to quickly, Grace, before I come to you, I want to touch on something because Gaji, you wrote about this concept of AI brain fry. You said whilst using AI to limit repetitive tasks reduces emotional exhaustion, the intensive oversight of multiple AI Agents and tools is creating a phenomenon Harvard Business Business Review calls AI brain fry. It's a state of mental fog, slower decision making and fatigue that carries significant business costs. 26% quarter of US marketers report experiencing the condition. Gaja, what are some of your thoughts here? Because you had a really good point of this being a red flag. This is something that companies should take note of.

[Gajo Sevilla]

Yeah, it's a red flag on a number of levels from the employee standpoint, it's just the cognitive load that they're expected to manage across all these new tools, all the new capabilities. And management wants to see results. So you use the tokens, use the LLMs. At the same time, companies really want to justify their AI expenditure. So you're spending tens of thousands on these subscriptions. You want to show that you are using them to the fullest advantage. But who's been charged to use these things? It goes down to the employees who sort of have to find a way to, to improve or replace existing tools with the newer, more expensive AI tools. And that's fine if you have one, two or three, but from what we are seeing, you need different tools for image creation, for editing, for writing. And so it takes a toll, I think through time if you're just constantly just moving around all these tools.

[Marcus]

Yeah, yeah. I like this line you have. You say unstructured AI adoption leading to fatigue could scrub efficiency gains. I think something that needs to be paid, closer attention to. Grace, what word would you use for AI is making marketing jobs more what I thought strategic.

[Grace Harmon]

But I agree with supervisory. You know, there's automation of these tasks like campaign optimization and data analysis. So there's just, it's a lot of moving time away from repetitive tasks and toward these higher level ones that sometimes only a person really can do, like creative direction and decision making.

[Marcus]

I'm surprised. Yeah, it's interesting. I thought you guys were going to say exhausting complex because there's a few.

[Grace Harmon]

I would say those two.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Gajo Sevilla]

I think those are a given.

[Marcus]

Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. But I like. Yeah, I do like these two that you've picked because. Yeah, a lot of the commentary out there at the moment is, is talking about how exhausting AI is making things and lesser about the changing nature of the role into something more supervisory or strategic. There's a recent piece by Ray A. Smith of the Wall Street Journal saying, quote, AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity of work rather than reducing it. According to analysis, it's one of the biggest studies of AI effects on work habits over 160,000 people by active Track found the time folks spent on email messaging, chat apps and business management tools basically doubled as the amount of time AI users devoted to focused, uninterrupted work concentrating on fixing a problem fell nearly 10%. So some more data there. And then head of ActiveTrack's productivity lab, Gabriela Mouch, that's how you pronounce it, says it's not that AI doesn't create efficiency, it's that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing other work. And that's where the creep is happening.

[Gajo Sevilla]

Yeah, it's similar to the long struggle with business software that you have all these different tools that are not connected that you need to use and master and then they get updated. So you have to keep relearning them. With AI though, I think we're starting to see companies try to consolidate that. Like Adobe is now, you know, put in some integrations with Slack, for example, where, you know, you could run, you know, your collaboration and your project management through Slack. Right?

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Gajo Sevilla]

And just earlier at Google IO, you know, Google announced that they've updated their, the search box. Right. And they're, they're integrating not just AI overviews and AI mode into one place, but they're putting in image creation, they're putting vibe coding into the search box. You can create an app just by typing or talking to Google. And I think maybe that's where we want to be headed. A single interface with multiple omnidirectional tools that you could use.

[Grace Harmon]

I think integration has become a word that I see a lot more often in press releases just because data quality and siloed teams are two of the big barriers that a lot of marketing teams report in terms of being able to effectively implement AI.

[Marcus]

I'm wondering how much as AI starts to mature, it's going to calm down people's overwhelm, basically. There was a recent journal article titled the American Rebellion against AI is gaining Steam. Booed commencement speakers, blocked data centers. Plumme poll numbers. Fast growing industry has a faster growing crisis. And in there, there you go. Of an Economist poll saying over 2/3, 65% of people in every age group, more for older folks. But at least 65% in the youngest, youngest group think AI is moving too fast. So how much of this is just the pace? Like do you think if everything slowed down by the factor of five people wouldn't there wouldn't be this backlash or this anxiety as much around AI? Or do you think it's just more of A technology, really. And the speed is only adding to it.

[Gajo Sevilla]

No, I think it's perception too, because we're just being bombarded with AI everything. And that hasn't gotten any better or less. In fact, there's just more of it. Right. Everything has to have an AI component to it. And I think at some point, you know, you as a consumer, maybe just a regular person, you hit the wall with that and you're like, what does this even mean? Right. Because they're just using it as a marketing term and saying, you know, this will solve everything.

[Marcus]

Right.

[Gajo Sevilla]

And yeah, I think that leads to the fatigue. That's a big one.

[Marcus]

Yeah, fatigue's a good word.

[Grace Harmon]

I mean, the pace. The pace is an enormous deal if you think about just like how much money, how quickly is flowing into a. Yeah, I think just the money is a good example of how fast things are moving. And Gaja's right. I think AI is being slapped as a label onto absolutely every product. It's kind of like the same thing with protein now, I would say too.

[Marcus]

Yeah, close TO or over $700 billion committed in investments for the four biggest AI companies, which is just impossible to wrap your head around that amount of money in a single year. Talking of the backlash, the fears, anxiety around this, Gracie recently wrote that AI First Strategies risk backlash amid job loss fears. You're pointing out that Oracle is laying off tens of thousands of folks block formerly Square is cutting half its workforce to move towards an AI driven operating model. But what could backlash actually look like? You had written a piece titled Gen Z Workers undermine and sabotage company AI plans as adoption turns into a labor battle. And a year ago you noted that number of folks were sabotaging their company's Gen AI strategies. Is employee backlash grace against AI a flash in the pan or the start of something deeper and more systemic?

[Grace Harmon]

No, it is not a flash in the pan. Companies are not backing down. They're pushing on adoption. They are cutting rules in favor of automation. And people are getting more and more worried about how AI is going to affect their lives and their careers. I was looking at a Gallup survey yesterday that I wrote on. Curiosity is the top emotion that Gen Zers report around AI. But anger and anxiety are the next two. And they're growing pretty fast. You know, people are worried about job displacement, they're worried about loss of, you know, employment in the creative arts, about heavier workloads, about fewer career opportunities. And I think that especially as automation becomes tied more directly to hiring and stopping decisions, whether that's implied or With a lot more cases lately with CEOs openly saying that's why they're doing it. Yeah, I think employee resistance is going to ramp up more. You know, you had mentioned the sabotage. There was a Writer survey. They did it in 2025 and 2026. And Gen Zers, I think at this point, about 44% have reported sabotaging their company's AI efforts. And as you can see with the chart on the screen for this Data from writer, 49% of knowledge workers are saying that AI is helping them with saving time and autonomously handling tasks. So it's kind of this combination of, you know, reported benefits, but working against AI in their workflows. I think it shows that perceived personal risk is outweighing utility.

[Marcus]

Yeah. And that's up, right?

[Grace Harmon]

Yes, it's up from 41%. Yeah.

[Marcus]

That have said that they're sabotaging. That have admitted to it. At least there might be more people who are doing it who are scared to say yes, but close to half of Gen Z is. And it was hard. I think it was like 30 something percent for everyone too. So it's not like it's just them. It is everyone, but they. They over index. Yeah. Yeah. Gajo Quinnipiac University poll. 70% say AI advancements will likely decrease job opportunities. And then to what Grace was saying, people are more worried than they are excited about AI. You can see from this chart on the screen data from, from quinnipiac poll, just 35% of US adults excited about AI compared to 80% who are concerned about it. What's your take here about the backlash that we're starting to see?

[Gajo Sevilla]

Yeah, I wanted to touch on something. Gray said that sometimes the CEOs of these AI companies aren't helping the cause, saying, oh, it's going to take over all these jobs, but there's no follow up to that. There's no like. But you will be able to get, you know, universal healthcare or something like that. There's no, there's no quid pro quo. So I think that helps. That doesn't help. And it builds anxiety.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Gajo Sevilla]

But also the idea that, okay, where are the opportunities with AI? So people feel you're either a coder or you're in the hardware, so you're building data centers. Definitely people need to do that. Right. But even those jobs, they're temporary. Right. Once the data center is built, it's up and running. You only need a few, a handful of managers to sort of make sure the power and everything is running smoothly. So they haven't really provided a moat that could ease that, that, you know, that pushback from people saying, it just feels like, oh, you know, our jobs, our futures are being taken and now what? Right, yes, it's, I think it's that open endedness that sort of leaves a bad taste in, you know, people's mouths and makes them sort of feel helpless. And I think that's the biggest challenge there is that, you know, that sensation that some things are going to end but there's nowhere to go to from, from there.

[Marcus]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There has been some, some argument that, yeah, data center, you need people to, to build them and so that's going to create jobs. But to your point, this, the short term, once they're built, they're good to go. Yeah, people have very strong feelings about this, understandably. And it's something that companies, governments too really need to be taking note of. There was this right before we hit record, I found this survey from King's College London. One in three university students say, I will wipe out jobs so rapidly it will trigger civil unrest. And we've seen, you know, these headlines in the news about booing at commencement speeches. I've said people protesting things getting, you know, there's a chap who was threatening or was violent, violent acts towards the head of OpenAI and multiple other cases about people getting really annoyed by this. And so, yeah, companies providing a bit more clarity about what the future might look like can certainly help. Yeah, Grace, you made this point earlier, but I'll hammer it home because I think it's an excellent one.

[Gajo Sevilla]

You're right.

[Marcus]

Noting that the combination of reported benefits and continued sabotage suggests that perceived personal risk outweighs utility. I think it's an excellent way to sum up what we've been talking about and something for folks to be considering that's what we've got time for for today's episode. Thank you so, so much to my gu for helping me break this down, understand what's going on. Thank you. First to Grace.

[Grace Harmon]

Thanks for having me. Nice to chat with you.

[Marcus]

Yes, indeed. Same to you. Thank you to Garjo.

[Gajo Sevilla]

Thank you very much. This was great.

[Marcus]

Yes, sir. Thanks to the whole production crew, Lance and Luigi helping out with this one. And to everyone for listening to behind the Limousine Marketer podcast. Tomorrow, Susie will have the Reimagine retail show for you presenting the infamous May Retailer Awards. And I'll be back discussing how social media is to going quietly taking over your living room.