Workers in the U.S., especially those seeking entry-level jobs, are increasingly concerned that new jobs could dry up as more employers embrace artificial intelligence.
But if you ask OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the possibilities created by AI make this “probably the most exciting time to be starting out one’s career, maybe ever,” he told the “People by WTF” podcast, in an episode that published on August 14.
AI could create new industries and types of roles, and help enhance workers’ ability to learn and implement new skills, said Altman, 40. He pointed to industries like tech, science and media as areas where AI tools could help young workers — especially entrepreneurs — achieve work that might have once required “decades of experience or [large] teams of people” to pull off.
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Even with the threat of companies using AI to justify eliminating roles, some experts predict that the technological advancement will actually create millions of new roles, some of which never existed before, according to the 2025 World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report.
Through tutoring and an ability to complete a wide variety of tasks for humans, AI could help “democratize access to jobs” for young workers by helping them add skills and technical knowledge that otherwise would have required years of experience and training, the report noted.
The technology will make people in a variety of jobs more productive, and “improve your work on the tasks you want to do and free you from the ones you don’t want to do,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wrote in a March 2023 blog post. (Gates acknowledged what he called “real but manageable” concerns around AI implementation, including misinformation and disruption of the labor market, in a July 2023 post.)
“It’s really amazing what you can do with a tool like this. I felt the same way when I was 25 … we had the computer revolution, [and] a 25-year-old then could do things that no 25-year-old in history before would have been able to,” said Altman.
A mix of AI-related concerns and opportunity
Of course, as CEO of an AI company, Altman isn’t an unbiased source. Rising adoption of AI tools and agents by U.S. employers accounted for cuts of more than 10,000 jobs over the first seven months of 2025, according to a July report from outplacement services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Young workers face particular difficulty finding jobs: People aged 22 to 27 have a higher rate of unemployment, by nearly a full percentage point, than the overall U.S. adult population, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the tech industry, hiring for new graduates at the 15 largest companies by market value has fallen by more than 50% since 2019, according to data from venture capital firm SignalFire.
More AI-related job cuts are likely on the horizon. Companies like Amazon have only recently announced plans to shrink their corporate workforces in the coming years as AI tools and agents take on more tasks. Some AI critics say the technology is more likely to encourage businesses to cut costs by employing fewer people, rather than boosting the work of those who are already employed.
So far, corporate America’s commitment to AI isn’t necessarily paying off: 95% of attempts to implement generative AI in the workplace have failed at boosting revenue, at least in the short term, according to a recent report from MIT researchers. The researchers studied more than 300 companies that invested up to $40 billion in AI tools, and found that “the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable … impact” to their bottom line.
Generative AI tools can increase individual workers’ productivity, the report found — echoing similar findings from Microsoft and LinkedIn’s 2024 Annual Work Trend Index. But most of the companies that MIT studied struggled to increase revenue with AI because they tried to shoehorn the tools into their extant workflows, rather than redesigning their workflows around AI’s strengths, the researchers wrote.
The success stories were largely early-stage startups led by young entrepreneurs who used AI models specifically tailored to their businesses, said the report. They “pick one pain point, execute well, and partner smartly with companies who use their tools,” Aditya Challapally, the MIT report’s lead researcher, told Fortune on Monday.
Generative AI can indeed give first-time business founders a huge boost, entrepreneurship expert and Stanford University adjunct professor Steve Blank told CNBC Make It in March. Chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude can help vet startup ideas, draft a business plan and fill in some of the gaps on small teams with limited experience and resources, said Blank.
“You don’t want to compete with someone who has an AI at their shoulder, because they’re acting like they have a team of 20 people coaching them,” Blank said.
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