This question comes up almost daily in person, on X, on the news or in passing conversations.
It is a question that impacts everyone personally and professionally. The honest answer is that we do not know yet, but there are signals forming on both sides.
The Bull Case: AI Creates More Jobs
Entrepreneurship appears to be accelerating.
LinkedIn reported that “Founder” titles increased 69% in 2025, and the U.S. saw 5.1 million new business applications filed last year. During periods of disruption, people are often forced to adapt as the job market adjusts. We saw similar spikes after the 2008 financial crisis and again after covid in 2020.
By lowering the barrier to entry and shortening the path to monetization, AI tools are making it easier than ever to start something. If this trend continues, it would not be surprising to see new business applications remain above five million annually for the foreseeable future.
I think about my own career in finance. The rise of tools like Excel, Bloomberg, and Pitchbook dramatically increased productivity. Yet finance employment still grew. In fact, productivity gains often just changed the nature of the work rather than reducing it. The hours are still long regardless of the tools. I recently heard similar comparisons at the Upfront Summit.
Alfred Lin of Sequoia pointed to the retail shift after Amazon launched in the late 1990s. Many predicted e-commerce would kill traditional retail. Instead, companies like Walmart adapted and became significantly larger. From a venture return perspective, Amazon was the breakout winner. But retail itself did not disappear, it expanded.
Similarly, Thomas Laffont of Coatue referred to the introduction of ATMs in the 1970s. ATMs reduced the cost of operating bank branches. As a result, banks opened more branches, which actually increased the number of teller jobs for decades.
Lower costs can sometimes expand markets rather than shrink them.
The Bear Case: AI Reduces Labor
At the same time, the early signals around labor displacement are difficult to ignore.
U.S. unemployment recently ticked up to 4.4%, the highest level since 2021. Large companies are beginning to reduce headcount while leaning more heavily on automation and AI.
Block, led by Jack Dorsey, recently announced layoffs, impacting roughly 4,000 employees. The stock rose sharply, as high as 25%, reflecting how markets are now rewarding efficiency gains even when they come at the expense of jobs. There have been few public companies to cut such a large portion of their workforce preemptively. Moves like this send a message to other CEOs about how aggressively companies may pursue efficiency in an ai-drive economy. At the same time, some observers noted that Block had added 7,000 employees since 2020, suggesting the layoffs may also represent a correction after rapid expansion.
Block was not alone though. February saw 90,000 job losses, and since January 2025 there have been multiple months of net job losses after several years without declines.
The job losses are compounded as new job openings are down as well. In some sectors, including finance and insurance, job openings are down as much as 75% since 2022. Even within startups, hiring trends appear to be shifting. While venture capital funding has increased 64% since 2022, startup hiring declined roughly 10%, suggesting companies may now be able to do more with fewer people.
Even AI companies themselves acknowledge the risk. Anthrophic recently published research suggesting that white-collar knowledge work is among the most exposed to automation.
The Real Question: How Will Jobs Evolve?
The debate often assumes the future will look like the past, but AI may change the structure of work itself.
If AI lowers the cost of building companies, the real question may not be how many jobs disappear, but how many founders decide to build. In that world, the number of companies may increase, while the number of employees per company decreases. Which means the future of work may not simply be more jobs or fewer jobs, but it may be different jobs.
Every technological shift creates winners. The people who benefit most are usually the ones who adapt first. In the age of AI, the greatest opportunity may belong to those willing to build: founders.
Source – https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeseq/2026/03/10/will-ai-destroy-jobs-or-create-them/