The companies leaning hardest into AI are hiring faster.
- Ram Srinivasan
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
Anthropic is set to restore Fable 5. Sonnet 5 nearly matches Opus at a fraction of the cost. Z.ai's openweights GLM 5.2 is genuinely brilliant. But the most important development this week is Ramp's workforce study.
The companies leaning hardest into AI are hiring faster.
Ramp linked spending data to workforce records across 21,000+ US firms and measured what actually happens to headcount after companies adopt AI. The heaviest adopters grew employment 10% over two years. Entry-level roles grew 12%.
The low-intensity adopters saw no meaningful change.
I wrote a while back that AI expands the pie of work. The dominant narrative treats work as fixed, where every task AI absorbs is one subtracted from a human. The data is running counter favoring reinvention, not substitution.
What is possible now that wasn't possible before?
IKEA showed WHY. They handed a chatbot 47% of customer queries. Then asked the better question, what can these people do now that the routine is handled? The answer was in the other 53% of calls: customers wanted design help. IKEA moved 8,500 workers up into remote design advisors and built a €1.3 billion revenue line that didn't exist before.
IBM is tripling US entry-level hiring. Amazon plans to hire 11,000 interns and recent graduates this year. Two in three companies that cut jobs for AI are already rehiring.
This is not to say there is no disruption. There absolutely is.
The World Economic Forum projects 92 million roles displaced by 2030 and 39% of today's skills going obsolete within five years. The net is positive. 170 million new jobs, a gain of 78 million.
"Net positive" is cold comfort if you're one of the 92 million. The timing and the pace of change matters. the new roles don't always arrive where the old ones vanished, or fast enough for the people who need them.
This is why the question that companies like IKEA are asking matters. This is why leadership matters. This is WHY we must ask: what is possible now that wasn't possible before?
Substitution is linear. Reinvention is exponential. You ask what a team can build once intelligence is abundant, and you unlock categories that weren't on the map.
The internet changed the substrate of global connectivity. It created trillions in value nobody could see in advance. We're at that moment again. The substrate this time is intelligence itself.
What will you build with it? Until next time, Ram —
Ram Srinivasan
MIT Alum | Author, The Conscious Machine | Global Future of Work and AI Adoption Leader published in Business Insider, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Executive Viewpoints and more.
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A Message From Ram:
My mission is to illuminate the path toward humanity's exponential future. If you're a leader, innovator, or changemaker passionate about leveraging breakthrough technologies to create unprecedented positive impact, you're in the right place. If you know others who share this vision, please share these insights. Together, we can accelerate the trajectory of human progress.
Disclaimer:
Ram Srinivasan currently serves as an Innovation Strategist and Transformation Leader, authoring groundbreaking works including "The Conscious Machine" and the upcoming "The Substrate Shift"
All views expressed on "Substrate" and across all digital channels and social media platforms are strictly personal opinions and do not represent the official positions of any organizations or entities I am affiliated with, past or present. The content shared is for informational and inspirational purposes only. These perspectives are my own and should not be construed as professional, legal, financial, technical, or strategic advice. Any decisions made based on this information are solely the responsibility of the reader.
While I strive to ensure accuracy and timeliness in all communications, the rapid pace of technological change means that some information may become outdated. I encourage readers to conduct their own due diligence and seek appropriate professional advice for their specific circumstances. Ramp Study: https://ramp.com/data/ai-jobs-impact
