Generation AI

There’s a strong sense among study participants that, when harnessed openly and thoughtfully, AI can democratize access to information and meaningful work.

Over 60% of respondents think AI will have a “positive or very positive” impact on society. Respondents report feeling more positive emotions than negative ones, saying that they feel curious (48%), excited (44%), inspired (41%), and optimistic (39%).

For Gen Z workers, AI has been a double-edged sword. “It’s a tough job market,” says Evan, a brand marketing research analyst at ServiceNow who entered the workforce just this year. As a Gen Zer, Evan is part of a generation that feels the rising prominence of AI in the workplace is affecting the availability of entry-level jobs. “I knew immediately that I had to get out ahead of AI and demonstrate to employers that I could use it,” he says.

Once Evan got the hang of AI, he began to see it as an advantage in the workplace. He now routinely uses AI to offload repetitive, manual tasks and focus on more creative work.

“Even entry-level people can act like directors now that AI handles the basics,” he says. This has been an enormous boon to his creativity and sense of purpose.

Despite generally positive attitudes toward AI, a sizable minority of survey participants report feeling concern (29%) and skepticism (21%) about the technology.

Unsurprisingly, a large part of this concern is over Gen Zers’ job prospects. Only 40% of participants think AI will create more jobs than it eliminates.

Daphne, a Gen Z Ph.D. student, is watching AI change the job market in real time. “My roommate is a lawyer who uses ChatGPT to generate contracts,” she says. “But my friend is working for a startup that is trying to use AI to replace lawyers.”

More surprising, however, is that the job market is not Gen Zers’ No. 1 concern. Qualitative data from the study reveals widespread concerns about AI causing cognitive decline. Participants frequently cited fears about “over-reliance” and “dependence” on AI. Some participants even equated AI technologies to a “drug”—a sentiment that Aaron, the student who used ChatGPT in his Latin American politics class, echoes. “It really does feel like an addiction,” he says.

Fear and optimism are not uniformly distributed across Gen Z. Respondents from lower-income regions—especially South Asia, East Africa, and West Africa—are more optimistic than those in more affluent regions such as North America. In fact, North American respondents report greater skepticism and lower usage than any of the regions surveyed.

Surprisingly, trust and belief in AI correlate with higher support for government regulation. This suggests that those who are more familiar with the technology recognize the importance of policymaking in allaying their most pressing fears.

Meeting this complicated moment requires a robust change management strategy on the part of employers, says Jayney Howson, senior vice president of global learning and development at ServiceNow. “Businesses should help people see AI as a tool that makes them better, not a threat to their existence. We need to teach the character skill of proactive, growth-driven learning,” she says.

Howson says that the biggest pitfall for organizations trying to attract Gen Z talent is “treating AI as cost-cutting rather than human empowerment.” In a world where organizations are perpetually low on talent and AI could potentially threaten economic equality, she says businesses should build an AI strategy that emphasizes creativity, empathy, and character.

To that end, Howson recommends employers create “learning playgrounds” that encourage people to approach work with curiosity rather than obligation.

On the other side of the coin, she recommends that Gen Z students and workers embrace human skills such as empathy, resilience, curiosity, and ethics. “These skills make you irreplaceable and help you develop the growth mindset needed to work alongside intelligent technology.”

Educators are working diligently to impart these skills to their students. Lisa, a Gen Zer who teaches college courses, says she uses ChatGPT to demonstrate skills such as critical thinking. Instead of banning the tool in her classroom, or turning a blind eye when students use it, she guides them through appropriate and inappropriate uses.

“ChatGPT is a yes-man. But ChatGPT knows it’s a yes-man. I’ve asked it, and it knows this!” says Lisa. “What’s important is that we know it too. Like any tool, what you get from it depends on how you use it.”

Maria Ott, a professor of clinical education at the University of Southern California, says it’s vital that educators find ways to get their students to be “critical users” of AI. For example, some educators pose a series of questions to ChatGPT on the topic at hand and work through the responses with their students. “What are the flaws in those answers? What are the gaps? It’s important to have them ask these questions,” she says.

Many Gen Zers are hungry for this kind of critical engagement. The survey respondents expressed a desire to use AI to boost creativity and original thought rather than to erode it. Even Aaron, the AI skeptic, says it’s fruitless to pretend AI doesn’t exist. Rather, he suggests that we treat the technology like a calculator, which is introduced only after we’ve mastered the fundamentals of mathematics.

These days, Aaron uses AI only about once a week. Some of his family members have fallen prey to deepfakes and other misinformation, so he wants to be careful. But there’s one area where he does trust the machine.

“I use AI for medical advice,” he says. “There’s no copay!”

As the boundary between human and machine gets blurrier by the day, Gen Zers aren’t abandoning what makes them human. Instead they’re editing the script, one prompt at a time.