Gen Z fears AI will threaten their careers; How leaders can change this

Are you communicating the purpose of AI to your younger employees? According to new data from Harvard, most fear that AI will take their jobs.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics on Thursday released the fall 2025 edition of the Harvard Youth Poll, which shows a generation under intense pressure. The national survey of 2,040 Americans ages 18 to 29 was conducted Nov. 3-7. For those interviewed, instability—financial, political, and interpersonal—has become a defining feature of everyday life.

Also read: Generation Z versus AI: who wins and who loses in the technology race

Young Americans see artificial intelligence as more likely to take something away than create something new. The majority (59%) see AI as a threat to their job prospects, more so than immigration (31%) or outsourcing jobs to other countries (48%).

Nearly 45% say AI will reduce opportunities, while just 14% expect gains. Another 17% see no change, and 23% are unsure — and this holds true across all education levels and genders.

Furthermore, young people fear that AI will weaken the meaning of work. About 41% say AI will make work less meaningful, versus 14% who say it will make it more meaningful and 19% who think it will make no difference; a quarter (25%) say they are not sure.

In my conversations this year with CFOs and industry experts, many have said that the goal of using AI is to remove the manual and repetitive aspects of work to create more meaningful and intellectually stimulating opportunities. However, that message doesn’t yet seem to be getting through to younger employees.

There’s a lot of public discussion and widespread fear that AI will, in particular, take away jobs, but a McKinsey Global Institute survey released last week offers another perspective.

According to the report, AI could, in theory, automate about 57% of working hours in the US, but this number only measures the technical potential of the tasks, not the inevitable loss of jobs, as Fortune reported.

Rather than mass replacement, McKinsey researchers argue that the future of work will be defined by partnerships between people, agents and robots — all powered by AI but dependent on human guidance and organizational redesign.

The main reason AI won’t immediately sideline half the workforce is the continued relevance of human skills.

The Harvard survey also found that young people have greater trust in AI for school and work tasks (52% overall, 63% among college students) and for learning or tutoring (48% overall, 63% among college students). But trust drops dramatically in personal matters.

Young employees are considered AI natives. However, it is important to recognize that they have not experienced as many major technological changes as more experienced employees, such as the emergence of the internet.

Not that AI won’t transform the workforce, but there’s still room — and need — for humans. It’s up to leaders to clearly communicate how AI will change roles, what tasks it will automate, and also provide ongoing training and guidance on how employees can further develop their careers in an AI-powered workplace.