Gen Z’s Career Risk Just Got Real
The market loves AI. But does it care about – or love – what AI is doing to those it replaces?
TL;DR
A young professional named Anya helped automate her own job out of existence.
She did everything right. Learned fast, worked hard, stayed current – and still got replaced.
What she lacked wasn’t skill; it was guidance.
This is the quiet career risk facing Gen Z: growing up in workplaces with dashboards instead of mentors, and systems that measure output but never teach judgment.
Technology isn’t the enemy – it’s the absence of leadership – in our homes, communities, and corporations.
What will keep this generation from feeling disposable isn’t AI literacy; it’s leaders willing to slow down, listen, and show them how meaning is made.
And now the essay.
She was sitting by the window of a café near her corporate campus, a half-cold coffee in front of her, the kind that had gone untouched long enough to leave a faint ring on the saucer. Outside, people hurried past in jackets that still carried the smell of rain.
“I think I just lost my job,” she said, staring at her phone. Then she added, almost as if correcting herself, “No, not lost. It’s still there. Just without me.”
Her name was Anya. Twenty-four. First real job. She’d helped her team automate a reporting process using an AI tool she had learned on her own time. It saved hours, reduced errors, and earned praise from her manager. Two months later, the same automation made her role unnecessary.
Her parents called it unfair. She didn’t know what to call it yet.
We talked for almost an hour. She kept circling back to the same thought — that she’d done everything she was told. The degree, the late nights, the certificates, the effort to stay current. She’d followed the playbook her parents and professors had handed her.
“I thought learning the new stuff would protect me,” she said. “Now it feels like the more I learn, the faster everything moves without me.”
Her voice was steady, but her hands wouldn’t stay still. There was no anger in her face, only confusion – the kind that comes when you realize nobody is guiding a massive shift in society.
I remembered my own first job. We didn’t have AI, but we had people who paid attention. When you looked unsure, someone noticed. When you failed, someone stayed late to show you what went wrong.
You learned by watching others wrestle with decisions – not perfect people, just people trying to get it right. Judgment was taught by proximity, not policy.
Anya didn’t have that. She had systems that measured performance, but no one who helped her make sense of it. She was fluent in the tools but still searching for meaning.
“You know,” I said, “when I started out, people argued in the open. You could see them disagree, change their minds, and explain why. That’s how you learned to think.”
She smiled faintly. “Now everything’s in chat windows and Slack channels. You never see how anyone decides – only the announcement after it’s done.”
We both fell quiet. There’s something sobering about realizing how much invisible teaching has disappeared from work. The small corrections, the gentle debates, the look that told you to slow down – those were classrooms too.
And maybe that’s what we’ve stopped offering – rooms where people can still learn by watching us think.
A few weeks later, she called again. She had taken a short-term job with an education startup. It wasn’t glamorous or stable, but she sounded lighter.
“It’s small,” she said, “but I’m building things again. I get to make choices, not just follow instructions.”
That line stayed with me. Because for her, it wasn’t about status or security – it was about feeling useful again. She wasn’t chasing a title anymore; she was rebuilding confidence, piece by piece.
We keep telling young people to keep up, to learn faster, to stay ready for what’s next. Maybe what they really need is a little time to catch their breath. Maybe what we all need is to stand beside them while they figure it out instead of shouting directions from ahead.
They don’t need slogans or resilience workshops. They need people who will sit across from them, listen, and remember what it felt like to be new and uncertain.
I sometimes think about what it would look like if every leader chose one young person to mentor quietly – no formality, no performance review – just one hour of genuine attention. The impact would outlast any transformation initiative we could fund.
When I left the café that day, she was still by the window, scrolling through listings, trying not to look defeated. I thought of all the young professionals doing the same – smart, capable, wonderful people – wondering what they did wrong.
And I thought about all of us – parents, mentors, leaders – who could still make that moment easier by showing up, not with solutions, but with presence.
Because in the end, the thing that makes work human isn’t the technology we build; it’s the people who still take the time to care.
Enjoy your loved ones and the rest of your Sunday!
And thank you for spending some of it with me.
Warm regards,
Adi