via TechCrunch AI
The AI Jobs Debate Just Got Messier
Fears of AI-related job losses intensify each time another company announces a round of layoffs. Through May 2026, companies disclosed that nearly 90,000 job cuts were tied to AI, and some projections suggest up to 15% of U.S. roles could be eliminated by AI over the next five years. The tech industry's assurances that AI will also create new positions do little to calm concerns, particularly among younger generations who worry about job prospects upon graduation.
A recent report from Ramp and Revelio Labs—which track enterprise AI spending and workforce data from nearly 22,000 companies, respectively—complicates this bleak picture. The findings show that businesses investing heavily in AI are actually growing headcount faster, even in entry-level roles often considered vulnerable.
Specifically, "high-intensity adopters"—firms spending an average of $30 per employee per month on AI in the first quarter—saw overall headcount increase by 10.2%. Job growth occurred across departments including engineering, sales, administration, customer service, finance, marketing, and scientist roles. The strongest growth among high-intensity adopters was in the information sector, covering software, internet, media, and tech-adjacent firms.
However, the data is not entirely optimistic. It heavily skews toward technology-forward, knowledge-work companies that may already be venture-backed and expanding quickly. This makes it difficult to determine whether AI is driving hiring or merely correlating with growth. As the report's authors note, "This paper does not show that AI universally creates jobs, but it does counter claims that AI will lead to broad job losses."
The report also challenges assertions that AI is eliminating all junior positions. While recent research from Goldman Sachs found AI has erased roughly 16,000 net jobs per month over the past year—disproportionately affecting Gen Z and entry-level workers—the Ramp and Revelio Labs data show that in tech-forward firms, entry-level headcount actually rose by 12%.
So what can we take away from this? Perhaps that AI is not always a tool for labor substitution but can instead serve as a catalyst for firm expansion. The report explains: "For software and technology firms, AI can make core output cheaper or faster to produce: writing code, debugging, building internal tools, producing technical documentation, and supporting product development. Lower production costs in these workflows can raise the return to expanding the whole firm, not just the engineering team."
Importantly, companies that purchased subscriptions or ran pilots without making sustained AI investments did not see any headcount gains. The mixed data points to a nuanced reality: AI's impact on employment depends heavily on how deeply and consistently it is integrated into business operations.