By Sunil Saxena
For months now, one line has been echoing everywhere: “AI is taking away jobs.”
And yet, a quieter, less dramatic story is unfolding beneath the noise.
A new survey by Teneo (as reported by Business Insider), covering more than 350 CEOs of public companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue, suggests a different story is beginning to take shape.
Sixty-seven per cent of these CEOs say they expect AI to increase entry-level hiring in 2026. Not reduce it. Increase it.
This isn’t a contradiction. It’s a transition.
What’s actually happening is not job erasure, but job reconfiguration.
Tasks are being automated. Roles are being reshaped. New skill clusters are forming around engineering, AI systems, decision design, and human-AI collaboration.
New categories are emerging — decision designers, AI experience officers — roles that didn’t exist two years ago.
Even companies announcing layoffs — HP, IBM — are simultaneously shifting headcount, not simply shrinking it. IBM, for instance, is cutting in some areas while planning to hire more graduates and expand AI- and quantum-focused teams.
So, the question is not whether AI will change work. It already has. The question is whether we are preparing people — especially those entering the workforce — for the roles that are actually being created.
Are we moving fast enough to train, reskill, and guide the next generation into these new jobs? Or are we still caught between fear of what AI might take away and hope for what it might create?
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