I don’t envy commencement speakers this year. Colleges just held their graduation ceremonies, letting loose thousands of young people looking for jobs at the exact moment that some AI industry leaders are predicting white-collar bloodbaths. Even the most inspirational advice lands like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
For recent graduates, the stakes are particularly high. In April, the New York Federal Reserve reported that “the labor market for recent college graduates deteriorated in the first quarter of 2025.” According to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, entry-level workers will feel the brunt of that white-collar bloodbath, with half of such jobs potentially disappearing in the next five years.
But I actually think graduates have reason to be excited. I’m more bullish than most on the future of human labor. AI is reshaping how value is created. As the race for efficiency and scale heats up, jobs will be cut, industries will vanish, and job losses may outpace opportunities — at least for now.
At the same time, the best way to minimize the effects of workplace disruption is to explore the opportunities that rapid change creates. While it’s rational to look for ways to AI-proof one’s future, it’s also insufficient. What you really want is a dynamic career path, not a static one. Would it have made sense to internet-proof one’s career in 1997? Or YouTube-proof it in 2008? When new technology starts cresting, the best move is to surf that wave.
Here’s where the young ’uns can actually excel. College grads (and startup companies, for that matter) almost always enjoy an advantage over their senior leaders when it comes to adopting new technology. Few top-tier print journalists thought it was smart to post their first drafts online, for free, so anonymous trolls could roast them without constraints. Yet Twitter became an essential news tool, and the journalists who mastered the platform built careers on it. No steadily employed SAG actors foresaw that cutting out directors and union-scale day rates to record one-take product unboxings under the glow of a $30 ring light would be the true path to 21st century fortune and influence, yet MrBeast earns more than some film studios.
So if you’re a recent graduate, I urge you not to think in terms of AI-proofing your career. Instead, AI-optimize it. Take advantage. AI is a tool you can master.
How? It starts with literacy, which goes well beyond prompt engineering and vibe-coding. You should also understand how AI redistributes influence, restructures institutional workflows and business models, and demands new skills and services that will be valuable. The more you understand what employers are hiring for, and the reasons why, the more you’ll understand how you can get ahead in this new world.
Conventional wisdom says the most valuable human attributes in the AI age are human qualities that AI cannot replicate – emotional intelligence, ethical discernment, and creative expression.
I’d like to add one more human quality to that list: intention. People with the capacity to form intentions and set goals will emerge as winners in an AI-mediated world. As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted in December, “You can just do things.”
While evidence suggests it’s getting harder to find a first job, it has never been easier to create a first opportunity. Since billions of people have access to the same tools and platforms and information you do, the competition will be intense. But it always has been for the best jobs.
Pick projects that let you show off your specific skills. Try lots of things. Instead of making five-year plans, consider six-month experiments. With the right tools, you can now do what used to require teams: create content and brands, generate and test marketing campaigns, write code, and design products.
Look for a niche you find meaningful or a problem you think it’s important to solve. Learn in public: Let people see the journey you’re on. Share the process, reflect, and repeat. The ability to self-start, to build and act without credentials, is ultimately what will get you hired. Even better, it’s not just a way in — it’s a way forward, a capacity you will continue to draw upon across all aspects of your life, no matter what shape the next wave of change takes.
It’s also what will help you create opportunities for others, and that’s never been more crucial. The uncertainty of professional life in an era of accelerating automation and the dawn of AI agents shows that personal relationships have never been more valuable. Human referrals and trust can’t scale like AI, so your personal network becomes more valuable than ever.
So become AI fluent but focus on people. Foster even more relationships. Technology is a powerful lever for progress because of how it enables widespread cooperation and collaboration and democratizes superpowers. Writing spread knowledge; printing presses brought it to the masses. The automobile gave millions the power of mobility that far exceeded what kings and emperors once commanded.
If we settle for anything less with AI, we’ll be failing to act on what’s possible. For new graduates, this is not just a time to survive disruption but one to shape what comes next. Define your career not by what AI makes obsolete but by what you choose to build with it. Be the person who moves early, learns fast, and brings others with you. AI gives us all a chance to be main characters in a story that’s still being written. But it’s no longer enough to be the star of your own narrative. You also have to direct.
Reid Hoffman is the cofounder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI and a partner at Greylock. He’s the cohost of the podcast “Possible” and the coauthor of “Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future.”