Gen Z, Gen AI and the Future of Work

 

Hardly a quarter of the 21^st century is over and mankind is on the cusp of witnessing a ‘never-seen-before, never-imagined-before’ revolution, impacting lives of most of us. One particular segment could be bearing the brunt of it and that could be Gen Z!

Gen Z –

This could be of one of the most widely used terms in the last couple of years.

By the way, naming a generation is typically a US phenomenon; we read of ‘silent generation’ (Born 1928-1945), then came the ‘Boomers’ (they were born during a massive ‘baby boom’ that happened after World War II , spanning the years between 1946 and 1964), followed by Gen X (born 1965-1980), Millennials/Gen Y (born 1981-1996) and then came in Gen Z (born in 1997-2012)! While these names until Millennials/Gen Y were more or less confined to US media, Gen Z became a buzzword across the world, mostly due the world coming closer due to technological advancements and thereby the vast reach of social media!

The formative years of Gen Z (all over the world) were impacted by COVID-19 pandemic. For almost 2 years, they didn’t go to school (or some to office); attended school/office from home. This early (and over) exposure to smartphones made them digitally fluent with vast access to information and thereby got them global exposure. But it also came with the downside. Too much screen time has been affecting their health, people skills, EQ (Emotional Quotient) and attention span also.

And as if all this were not sufficient, just when they are about to enter the corporate world (or just entered it a couple of years ago and learning the ropes) , they have to face the biggest of the challenges, …of the most disruptive technology of.. Gen AI!

Gen AI – (Generative Artificial Intelligence)

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed the question ‘Can machines think?’ and outlined the famous Turing Test. In this test, a human judge has a text chat with both a person and a machine. If the judge cannot tell which one is the machine, the machine passes. (By the way, the first Turing test was passed in 2014, just 12 years ago, by a computer program named Eugene Goostman)

In 1956, John McCarthy coined the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ at Dartmouth College, marking the official birth of AI as a field of study. The 1970’s saw the development of Expert systems (rule-based programs designed to solve specific domain problems e.g. Medical diagnostics). 90’s witnessed Data-driven machine learning. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov (proved the power of raw computing power and decision trees). The years 2000-2010 saw rise of Deep Learning and Big Data explosion.

In 2016, Google’s DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol at Go, a complex game once thought impossible for machines to master.

LLMs (Large Language Models), The Generative AI (using NLP – Natural Language Processing) and autonomous Agents got developed.

Year 2022-2026: OpenAI’s ChatGPT popularized Gen AI, followed by Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, DeepSeek, Perplexity, Claude.

Corporate world has been quick to move in. Traditional BI, which helped analyse and report data (that too in a batch mode) is getting replaced by AI which not only makes predictions and recommendations in real-time but also enables automated decision-making when you use AI-powered autonomous agents. In short, we’re seeing Reporting à Predictions → Recommendation → Autonomous Action.

Indian enterprises have been pretty receptive. While the early adopters were e-Commerce players (like Swiggy, Zomato, Paytm, Amazon), many industries/verticals are embracing AI with gusto.

•        Software Engineering/IT – (GitHub Copilot, Claude) – writing code to auto-debugging to creating Apps

•        Marketing/Sales/Content creation

•        Back office - BPOs/customer care agents, email automation, Personal Assistant (thru’ agentic AI)

•        Healthcare and life sciences – drug discovery (predicting protein structures/design custom molecule etc.) , clinical workflows

•        Media/Gaming/entertainment - News/cartoons/memes creation, create songs(numbers/album!) from lyrics (AI writes lyrics too!!)

•        BFSI industry, stock brokers, investment consultants 

•        Professional services, Legal professionals

Even the traditional engineering/automobile companies are deploying AI. 

Tata Motors, Hyundai Motors, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra and Mahindra, Larsen and Toubro are using AI in some of the following applications -

•        Predictive maintenance

•        Automated quality checks

•        Simulate crash tests

•        Driving assistance software

•        Supply chain and smart plants

Future of Work –

Gen AI is a transformative force with some some metrics showing capability doubling every 6 to 7 months (sometimes described by industry leaders as "Moore's Law squared"). Humanoid AI could be accelerating the pace further and thereby promising 20X/50X productivity gains. This is bound to make paradigms shift (rather, it could be seismic shifts!)

So can anyone really foresee what the workplace will look like in 2040? Probably not!

..And here is yours truly giving it a humble try; so please take it with a liberal pinch of salt! 😊

There could be three possible scenarios (or rather, stages) unfolding over next 20 years.

•        Scenario A (Next 10 years) – AI augments humans

Limited net impact on white-collar employment, but significant task-level changes.

Stanford University Study says-

•        AI’s impact on aggregate employment is likely small right now.

•        A tough market for recent graduates may be partly due to AI.

•        AI’s impact on worker productivity is mixed but generally positive.

•        Firm adoption has accelerated but unevenly across the economy

Boston Consulting Group has something similar –

•        Reshaping over replacement: Most jobs are changing rather than disappearing completely. Over half of jobs are being actively transformed. BCG says - AI Will Reshape More Jobs Than It Replaces.

•        Entry-level squeeze: Early-career and entry-level positions—such as junior analysts, customer support, and data entry—face the steepest decline as AI agents handle foundational tasks.

•        High-exposure sectors: Finance, legal services, software development, and administrative support see the highest task overlap with current generative AI tools.

Times of India news (8^th Aug’26) confirming the same –

‘AI creating more jobs than it cuts in India. India recorded 83,100 AI-related hires during the period, compared with 31,921 layoffs and attrition, according to the report released Friday.’

Vineet Nayar (former CEO of HCL Consulting) captures it succinctly. He says, “Worldwide, the number of people in technology is going to go up and not down. But for some companies that are not going to re-invent themselves in the age of AI, the number of employees is going to go down. And That’s what you are seeing today. You need more what I call imagineers — people who imagine different kind of solutions.”

•        Scenario B (After 15 years) – AI replaces many tasks

White collar jobs would be affected greatly. Blue collar jobs would be in demand. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AI Godfather Geoffrey Hinton believe manual labour is safer from AI because it will take longer for AI to have the dexterity to take on more physical jobs.

•        Scenario C (After 20 years) – (AI + Robotics/Humanoids) radically reshape work

White collar as well as blue collar jobs would be reduced drastically. There would be productivity boom (due to AI and affordable automation/robots/humanoids). Governments would be giving UBI (Universal Basic Income) to all – to be at home and do nothing!

 To prepare for the future –

While nobody would be 100% correct over which scenario would unfold over the next 20 years, overall, it certainly isn’t very rosy. How should Gen Z prepare for it?

While there is no magic mantra (or a magic wand), one needs to do a SWOT-style analysis of what AI brings to the table (speed, scale, data, pattern recognition, content generation) and what we (humans) bring to the table (judgement, empathy, leadership, creativity, ethics, context).

We should neither shun nor fear AI nor should we blindly follow it. (Never develop the notion that ‘AI is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent’)

But we need to see AI as our coworker/collaborator bringing out the synergistic results/huge productivity gains.  

While 74% of Gen Z use artificial intelligence tools every day, we don’t know how much it adds to their efficiency. Prompt engineering should not be overlooked.

As noted by Fortune, about 62% of Gen Z admit they use artificial intelligence as a mental crutch. Heavy use of automated tools can weaken natural problem-solving and critical thinking skills. So, one needs to draw a boundary over AI usage and should not overlook his/her innate human skills, rather they need to be leveraged to survive/succeed!

It is worth noting that AI doesn't necessarily replace entire jobs. AI changes the tasks within jobs. There will be new tasks unimagined today. One just needs to have his/her eyes and ears open to see the changes happening around, spot the opportunities and embrace the best possible one with open mind. The time-tested best habits of networking, continuously sharpening your skills and keeping abreast of the technologies/developments would come in handy!