Is AI putting graduates out of work already?

Illustration: Katie Martin

May 13th 2026|3 min read

“There’s no sign in the data that AI is costing anybody their job right now,” Kevin Hassett, a White House adviser, said on May 11th. Someone should tell America’s class of 2026. “It’s grim,” one professor says of the market for graduate jobs. Artificial intelligence is the popular villain. At a recent commencement ceremony in Florida a speaker was booed for mentioning it. And not without reason: our analysis suggests AI may indeed be harming some graduates’ job prospects.