{"slug": "if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say", "title": "If AI Disappeared Tomorrow, So Would My Career, Gen Z Workers Say", "summary": "A global workplace study by Workplace Intelligence in partnership with software firm GoTo found that while the vast majority of Gen Z workers say AI has helped them at work, roughly four in ten say they could not do their jobs without it, and nearly half say their reliance on AI is making them less sharp. GoTo CEO Rich Veldran told Fortune that workers may realize in hindsight they are relying too much and not learning necessary skills. The study also found that heavy AI users were about three times more likely than slower adopters to have received both a promotion and a raise in the past year.", "body_md": "Ask a young employee what AI has done for their career, and the answer tends to be enthusiastic. Ask them what happens if it disappeared tomorrow, and the tone shifts fast.\n\nThat contradiction sits at the center of a wave of recent workplace research on how Generation Z is using artificial intelligence on the job — and it’s more complicated than either the optimists or the alarmists want it to be.\n\nThe headline numbers, drawn from a global workplace study conducted by Workplace Intelligence in partnership with software firm GoTo, are striking on their own. The vast majority of Gen Z workers say AI has genuinely helped them at work — faster research, cleaner writing, less time lost to grunt work. But in the same survey, roughly four in ten said they don’t think they could do their jobs without it anymore. Nearly half went further, saying their growing reliance on AI is making them less sharp, not more.\n\n“It’s only in the rearview mirror that folks will look back and say, ‘You know what, I’m actually relying on it too much. Perhaps I’m not learning some of the things I need to learn,’” GoTo CEO Rich Veldran told Fortune, describing the dilemma facing workers still early in their careers.\n\nThe tension isn’t confined to one survey. Other recent research paints a similar picture from a different angle. A workplace study from talent development firm TalentLMS found that while most Gen Z employees say AI genuinely helps their daily workflow, a large share are split on whether it’s helping them grow. A meaningful chunk of respondents said delegating tasks to AI has actually cost them learning opportunities — the small, occasionally frustrating assignments that used to be how junior employees built real skill.\n\nThat’s the uncomfortable math at the heart of the debate. The tasks AI is best at automating — drafting, summarizing, first-pass analysis — are often the same tasks that used to teach new employees how a job actually works. Take those away too early, some researchers argue, and workers skip the parts of the learning curve where judgment gets built.\n\nNot every young professional sees it that way, though. Separate research from KPMG, surveying interns entering the workforce, found a notably more confident posture: most expect a meaningful share of entry-level work to be automated in the years ahead, yet the large majority say they feel prepared to work alongside AI rather than be replaced by it. Their strategy isn’t to avoid the tools — it’s to lean into judgment, creativity, and the kind of human skill they don’t expect AI to touch anytime soon.\n\nEmployers, for their part, seem to be rewarding exactly that kind of engagement. Workplace Intelligence’s research found that heavy AI users — the employees who’ve built the technology deepest into their daily routines — were about three times more likely than slower adopters to have landed both a promotion and a raise in the past year. Whatever the risks of overreliance, sitting on the sidelines appears to carry its own cost.\n\nThat’s left many young workers navigating a narrower path than the “adopt AI or fall behind” framing usually suggests. The employees thriving right now aren’t necessarily the ones using AI the most or the least — they’re the ones who’ve figured out where to lean on it and where to still do the work themselves. As one researcher who studies workplace technology put it, the risk was never that AI would replace young workers outright. It’s that it would quietly replace the reps they needed to become senior ones.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say", "canonical_source": "https://canews24.online/?p=80", "published_at": "2026-08-21 23:01:18+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-21 23:15:04.328892+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Workplace Intelligence", "GoTo", "Rich Veldran", "TalentLMS", "KPMG", "Fortune"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/if-ai-disappeared-tomorrow-so-would-my-career-gen-z-workers-say.jsonld"}}