Want an AI-proof job? New research says you may be safer at companies embracing the technology

Want an AI-proof job? New research says you may be safer at companies embracing the technology - Click here to listen to this article - Share via See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred While AI is often cited as one of the reasons for mass layoffs, particularly in the tech sector, for fast-growing companies it also seems to be creating new jobs in many companies, according to a study published Tuesday from financial services company Ramp and employment database Revelio Labs. “Our early result is that it looks like firms are starting to look for more entry-level hires, likely people who are more AI native,” said Ara Kharazian, the lead economist at Ramp, a financial services company that found a rise in early-career hiring by companies in the period they started spending heavily on AI. The study tracked AI spending and the workforce records of nearly 22,000 U.S. companies between January 2021 and February 2026. It found that firms that spent more on AI ended up increasing their workforce headcount by an average of 10% over the two years after rolling out the technology. Companies that made the largest AI investment expanded entry-level job hiring by 12%. The rise of artificial intelligence is prompting college students to second-guess their career paths “If you are a job seeker, or you are graduating from college, and you’re choosing between two different firms that are otherwise similar, I would choose the one that’s using AI,” Kharazian said. “Our paper shows that that firm is going to grow faster.” The early and intense AI adopters spent more than $100 per month per employee on AI and had their employees using advanced AI, such as coding subscriptions, as opposed to simple ChatGPT subscriptions. The low-intensity, casual AI adopters didn’t see any hiring gains and reduced headcount. The Ramp study showed a positive effect on employment from AI because it focused on firms adopting AI, many of them fast-growing, venture-backed companies hiring AI-native junior employees. Hiring slowed sharply in June even as the unemployment rate fell, curbing some of the budding momentum in job growth this year. It reached a different conclusion than a November 2025 Stanford University study, which examined payroll data across the entire labor market and found that employment among young software developers had declined by nearly 20% from its late-2022 peak. The two findings can both be true, Kharazian said, because the Stanford study was broader and didn’t focus just on the firms that use AI. “While there may be overall weak hiring for young people, what we found is that hiring is actually strong at the firms that use AI, and the firms that use AI intensely,” he said. In another recent study on the impact of AI on jobs, the California AI-unemployment tracker examined the state across industries, education levels and region and highlighted some worrying trends. It seemed to disprove the understanding that AI has been hurting mostly younger employees and those in entry-level jobs. It found that unemployment insurance claims among college-educated workers in high-AI-exposed jobs, such as customer service and software development, increased after ChatGPT’s release in 2022 and remained elevated through May 2026. Unemployment insurance claims among master’s and PhD holders in highly AI-exposed occupations have also risen, moving from a baseline average of 13,000 claims per month in November 2022 to between 16,000 and 22,000 claims per month since mid-2023, the study found. The study also categorized unemployment claims by age and found that a significant portion of claims were from those aged 36 to 65, signaling that AI’s effect doesn’t only affect early-career jobs. It also found a higher rate of insurance claims in the San Francisco Bay Area compared with the rest of California, and that job loss claims were concentrated in the technology sector. A new survey of individuals using AI found it made them more productive, saving each roughly 11 hours per week. But at the same time, the workers on average have to spend more than six hours ‘botsitting.’ In 2026, tech companies have let go of more than 160,000 workers, according to trueup.io, a website tracking industry layoffs. Many companies have said AI was one of the main reasons for layoffs. Meta, Oracle, Microsoft and other big tech companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees, while simultaneously investing billions in AI data centers. Ramp’s findings that heavy AI adoption can lead to increased hiring suggests that some of the companies announcing large layoffs may be guilty of blaming regular cost cutting on AI, a practice dubbed “AI washing.” “When you hear CEOs talk about layoffs and they attribute it to AI, I would be skeptical,” Kharazian said.