Abigail Carlos was supporting him for the busy holiday season as his employer, Warner Bros Discovery, was preparing to launch a series of new shows. Media strategist Carlos needed a hand because he had to assign complex tasks to his team members. So she asked ChatGpt and confusion to organize everything with emails that sounded both professional and personality.
“AI cuts workloads in half,” she says. She has been using a variety of AI tools for years. In past roles running social media accounts, I have been able to use chatbots to write posts. Now she uses it to do boring tasks like drafting emails and double-checking spreadsheets, freeing up time to focus on high-level creative jobs. “I think it’s going to work smarter and not difficult,” Carlos says. The 26-year-old now relies on everything from revising her LinkedIn profile to coming up with ideas for the poems she writes as a assistant.
The growing Gen Z workforce will embrace AI, free up time, improve work-life balance, and ideally automate drudger to make work more meaningful. When Google surveyed more than 1,000 knowledge workers in their 20s and 30s last year, 93% of people identified as Gen Zers said they used two or more AI tools per week. Talent and staffing agency Randstad discovered in a report last year that General Zers generally use AI in the office more frequently than older counterparts for everything from administrative tasks to problem solving. did. This is the generation that “grown seamlessly with technology” as Deborah Golden, America’s top innovation officer at Deloitte. To them, she says, “I feel that engagement with AI is more intuitive than intentional.”
Gen Zers’ share in the US workforce has recently surpassed the proportion of baby boomers, and this year’s Gen Zers is expected to account for more than a quarter of the global workforce. A change to a generation of chatbots can have a seismic effect on the workplace. As employers try to leverage tech productivity gains, AI proficiency is becoming a prerequisite for many jobs, leaving people not too fast to adopt it. With AI uncertainty about taking away job opportunities, many young people are skilled to stay vibrant. However, some experts are worried that operating the AI autopilot could potentially come back to bite the Gen Z in the long run.
Monique Buksh, a 22-year-old law student and Australian paralegal, discovered that AI is an immeasurable time savings. She uses Westlaw Edge and Lexis+ to conduct legal research and unearth relevant case law and law. She also turned to grammar to draft official documents and AI assistant Claude, finding contradictions in the contract.
“AI handles time-consuming tasks so we can focus more on strategy, professional development and problem-solving discussions with managers,” she says. “Soft skills like communication and critical thinking will play an even bigger role in the future as AI continues to take over repetitive tasks.”
Many Gen Z workers may find it easier to ask questions to AI because they are not comfortable connecting with manager IRLs, unable to have difficult conversations.
Josh Schreiber, a 21-year-old HR intern at Coinbase, uses confusion and ChatGpt to brainstorm ideas and research subjects. He also uses otter.ai to record and transcribe conversations, such as sales calls and product meetings, allowing him to focus on discussions rather than desperately taking notes.
He believes that AI adoption is a matter of learning from history. In the early days of personal computing, he says, “people who use computers, programming, and software are consistently superior to those who resisted change.” Today, he argues that “Gen Z workers who choose to embrace AI are superior to everyone around them.” Schreiber compared the AI to ski lifts. It’s better to lift the lift and enjoy the downhill rather than slowly climbing the mountain first.
Carlos agrees. “It’s important to learn about new innovations in technology rather than fighting it,” she says.
The employment of AI at Zers Gen is also driven by fears that AI will replace jobs. Anxiety is not unfounded. This analysis from the past fall reveals that over 12,000 jobs were cut in 2024 due to AI. McKinsey et al. predict that the entry-level role, with Gen Z predominant, will be the first reduction through automation.
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For example, a Microsoft and LinkedIn survey of 31,000 knowledge workers conducted last year suggested that AI could quickly track the professional trajectory of Gen Zers. Of the leadership workers surveyed, 71% said they prefer to hire candidates with AI expertise over people with more traditional experience, with nearly 80% who are more AI-savvy staff. He replied that he would give him responsibility.
Tatiana Becker, who specializes in technology adoption, ultimately said, “Employers are more interested in people with AI skills, but more interested in all levels, not just Gen Z workers. It’s probably.”
However, some people are worried that using AI as a shortcut could hurt Gen Z workers in the long run. In an online survey of Gen Zers using AI in the workplace by Talentlms, a provider of e-learning software to businesses, 40% of respondents believe that AI is hampering growth by performing tasks they can learn . Another study suggested that dependence on AI tools is associated with lower measures of critical thinking and lower measures, particularly among younger adults. A recent paper by researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found similar things. The more people who use AI to trust, the less they rely on critical thinking skills.
More concern: About half of Gen Z respondents in the survey by workplace intelligence, industry research agencies and talent development company Into said they looked at AI for guidance on behalf of their managers. Author and workplace strategist Erica Keswin is not surprised. Many Zers missed important in-person instruction at universities due to the pandemic. “Many Gen Z workers may find it easy to ask questions to AI because they can’t have difficult conversations to connect with their manager IRL,” she says. Unlike managers, AI is always accessible, instant and provides answers without judgment.
That has its drawbacks. Deloitte’s Golden says collaboration and innovation are thriving in the messiness of human interaction. “There is a real risk of undermining ZZ’s ability to navigate ambiguity and build interpersonal skills that are essential in any workplace,” she says.
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This is one reason why New York Gen Z professional Nicolas Portello is resisting the use of AI software. He believes that the immediate satisfaction offered by AI can be harmful to productivity and creativity. “Some of the best ideas my team and I created in 2024 can be attributed to open communication brainstorming sessions and environments, as opposed to ChatGpt,” Portello says.
From Gen ZZ Zentrants to Company executives, everyone needs to know when AI is useful and when something needs human touch.
Kyle Jensen, professor of English and director of the Writing Program at Arizona State University, thinks it is an avoidable problem. He says that what AI supplements rather than replacing analytical capabilities in young people must develop field or topic expertise. He tries to encourage students to reflect on the role of AI tools in problem solving. What problems do they most help? When will it be useful?
Jensen says that once a person gets a detailed understanding of the subject area, the generated AI output is “overly common and useless for problems that are trying to solve, incorrectly or exclude. They claim to be able to learn. They know or feel. “This also helps to bring more creative prompts and questions.
AI is a great leveling power within the workplace, lifting huge legs to young workers. However, the experts I spoke to expect that as Gen Z gets a head start with AI, the workplace will be split between people using AI and those who don’t. Over time, this could push out older workers.
Companies are already perpetuating the problem by adjusting training opportunities only to the youngest staff. Various studies have shown that Gen Z employees tend to have more opportunities to learn how to use AI than older workers. Stephanie Forrest, CEO of TFD, a London-based marketing agency, warns other employers against counting older workers. “If given the right support, it should not be taken as a natural conclusion that these generations are less capable or more ambitious to use AI,” she says.
Ultimately, employees and organizations that move forward effectively utilize people’s powers, such as managers’ ability to coach, mentor, and motivate managers, and employees’ ability to persuade clients to stay in the company. It will be something you can do. I can’t. From Gen ZZ Zentrants to Company executives, everyone needs to know when AI is useful and when something needs human touch.
Shubham Agarwal is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India, whose work has appeared in Wired, The Verge, Fast Company and more.
