{"slug": "ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era", "title": "AI vendors fund non-profit to help workers adapt to AI era", "summary": "A new non-profit organization, Raise Us, launched Thursday with over $500 million in funding from Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, and the OpenAI Foundation to help US workers transition to an AI economy. Led by former governors Gina Raimondo and Eric Holcomb, it will partner with states including Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah to pilot retraining and redeployment programs. Analysts express skepticism, calling the initiative a public-relations effort given that many involved companies have already laid off workers due to AI.", "body_md": "AI is here, and we must help workers adapt: That’s the response of a new non-profit organization to the ongoing debate about whether AI will destroy jobs and cause catastrophe or take the economy to new heights.\n\nLaunched Thursday, [Raise Us](https://www.raiseus.ai/) is a nonpartisan national organization that says it will partner with state governors, employers, workers, and training organizations to help the US workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy. It says it will design and pilot new corporate incentives to retrain and redeploy workers, develop new approaches to support people through job transitions, and create new training models tied to changing employer demand.\n\nIt has already raised more than $500 million and hopes to bring that up to $1 billion in multi-year commitments from philanthropists and industry sources. Anchor partners include Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, and the OpenAI Foundation, and more than two dozen other organizations including Cisco, IBM, ADP, AMD, and Deloitte have also signed on.\n\nThe organization is led by two former US state governors, Gina Raimondo, who will serve as CEO and co-chair, and Eric Holcomb, co-chair, and its initial government partnerships are with the states of Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah, which, it said, “will serve as the first proving grounds for outcome-driven pilots.”\n\nHowever, analysts are skeptical that the initiative is anything other than a public-relations effort for the AI industry.\n\n[Jason Andersen](https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/team/jason-andersen/), VP and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said the organization’s initial communications are more marketing and posturing than strategy and action. “It also does not help that there are many CEOs involved who have already displaced thousands of workers due to AI,” he said.\n\nThe organization has chosen to work with state governments rather than the US federal government but even partnering at the state level may be too broad, he said, given that the industry makeup varies from state to state, with some leaning towards knowledge workers, while others are more manufacturing-focused.\n\nTechnology analyst [Carmi Levy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmi) said Raise Us’s mission is laudable, but, “Unfortunately, for all its slick website and optimistic-sounding copy, Raise Us is possibly the highest-profile example of AI-washing thus far, a well-intentioned but ultimately futile attempt to illustrate that something is being done to cut through the uncertainty and empower the workforce of tomorrow. In reality, it’s a convenient vehicle for a diverse range of stakeholders, including state governments, educators, financial institutions, and companies like Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and the OpenAI Foundation, to virtue-signal that they’re doing their utmost to solve the AI employment crisis and mitigate the impact of this generational technology deployment on everyday workers.”\n\nLike Andersen, he noted that since many of those same companies have already had multiple rounds of tech-driven layoffs, “It’s more than a little rich for them to be joining an initiative whose mission revolves around protecting workers from the worst risks associated with AI.”\n\nBut, he said, “If Raise Us can deliver on its lofty promises, it could be an important first step in the great AI workforce transition. Otherwise, it could end up being little more than a high-profile exercise in creating plans and reports and conference panels with little on-the-ground execution to show for it. I’ll believe in its mission when middle-aged, mid-level administrative workers are realistically redirected into new AI-enabled career paths without a massive pay cut.”\n\nAndersen, too, said he’s keeping an open mind, “but something more measurable and specific is in order, or this just looks like a public relations effort.”", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era", "canonical_source": "https://www.computerworld.com/article/4189900/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era.html", "published_at": "2026-06-26 10:01:25+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-26 10:08:17.411197+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-ethics", "ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-startups", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Raise Us", "Amazon", "Microsoft", "Anthropic", "OpenAI Foundation", "Gina Raimondo", "Eric Holcomb", "Moor Insights & Strategy"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-vendors-fund-non-profit-to-help-workers-adapt-to-ai-era.jsonld"}}