Fears of AI-related job losses are growing at a different company every time announces a round of layoffs. He announced that he is close to the companies until May 2026 90,000 jobs are being cut was related to artificial intelligence, and by some estimates, up to 15% of jobs in the US are is predicted to be Eliminated by AI over the next five years. Promises from the tech industry that AI will also create new jobs do little to assuage fears, especially for a generation wondering whether someone will be hired after graduation.
A recent report from Ramp and Revelio Labs, which tracks enterprise AI spending and the workforce records of nearly 22,000 companies, respectively, complicates this bleak narrative.
The report shows that companies spending heavily on AI are growing their workforce at a faster rate, even in entry-level roles that many fear. According to the report, “high-intensity adopters” — firms that spent an average of $30 per employee on AI in the first three months — saw a 10.2% increase in headcount.
The number of employees has increased by functions, including engineeringsales, management, customer service, finance, marketing and scientist roles. Among high-intensity adopters, the strongest job growth was in the information sector, which includes software, internet, media, and technology-related firms.
Despite these positive signals, the data is not as rosy as it seems. This skews toward tech-oriented, knowledge-based firms — firms that may have VC backing and are growing quickly anyway — making it hard to say whether AI is contributing to hiring or just appearing in companies that are expanding.
The paper’s authors acknowledge that, “This paper does not show that AI will create global jobs, but challenges claims that AI will cause widespread job losses.”
It also counters claims that AI is killing all small jobs. Recent studies AI has already eliminated about 16,000 net jobs per month over the past year, with Gen Z and entry-level workers bearing the brunt of the burden, Goldman Sachs found. But at tech-leading firms, the number of entry-level workers actually increased by 12%, according to the report.
So what can we take from this? Perhaps AI is not always a tool to replace labor, but instead can be a tool for firm expansion.
“For software and technology firms, AI can make it cheaper or faster to produce a core product: writing code, debugging, building internal tools, producing technical documentation, and supporting product development,” the report said. “Lower manufacturing costs in these workflows can increase revenue for expanding not just the engineering team, but the entire firm.”
According to the report, companies that buy subscriptions and run pilots, but don’t continue to make ongoing investments, see no gains in headcount.
This creates the potential for a expanding space Between firms that have the resources such as capital, technical staff, founder networks and management bandwidth to turn AI adoption into real business gains, and between companies that have experimented with subscriptions. In other words, this report suggests that firms that already have resources will see the greatest gains.
The paper’s authors speculate that such a divide may continue to grow, saying, “Firms without these channels may be left behind.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
