AI Drives Entry Level Job Comeback Says CEOs

The prevailing story about AI and jobs goes like this: automation eliminates positions, workers get displaced, unemployment rises. A new survey from global advisory firm Teneo tells a different story. Public company CEOs say AI will actually boost hiring in 2026, especially for entry-level roles.

Sixty-seven percent of CEOs surveyed expect AI to increase entry-level hiring next year. Fifty-eight percent plan to add senior leadership roles as well. The survey, conducted between October 14 and November 10, gathered responses from more than 350 global CEOs leading public companies with at least 1 billion dollars in annual revenue, plus about 400 institutional investors representing 19 trillion dollars in portfolio value.

"It's not that AI is wiping out the workforce today, it's reshaping it," said Ryan Cox, Teneo's global head of AI.

The findings contradict the doom narrative that dominated 2024. Yes, companies announced layoffs. Yes, AI got blamed. But the reality appears more nuanced. Firms are ramping up hiring in engineering and AI-related roles. Many existing jobs are being reconfigured or reassigned as certain tasks become increasingly automated rather than eliminated entirely.

Where the New Jobs Are Appearing

The hiring uptick ties directly to surging corporate AI investment. Sixty-eight percent of CEOs said they plan to increase AI spending next year, up from 66 percent in 2025. Nearly nine in 10 CEOs said AI is already helping their organizations navigate disruption.

All that spending creates job openings. Companies need people to build, implement, and maintain AI systems. They need engineers, data scientists, and specialized technical roles. They also need workers who can manage AI-augmented workflows, oversee automated processes, and handle the human judgment calls that machines cannot make.

Take IBM as an example. The company announced in November it would reduce its workforce by a "single-digit percentage" in the fourth quarter of 2025. That sounds like typical AI-driven job cuts. But IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNN in October that the company is simultaneously shifting headcount toward AI and quantum computing, and plans to ramp up hiring of college graduates in the next year. AI adoption has also driven demand for programmers and sales employees, he told The Wall Street Journal in May.

HP said in a November earnings report that it plans to eliminate between 4,000 and 6,000 roles by the end of 2028, a move expected to save about 1 billion dollars. These announcements grab headlines. What gets less attention: companies are hiring for different roles at the same time they cut others.

AI has created entirely new job categories. Titles such as decision designer and AI experience officer are emerging in the workforce, workplace experts reported in Business Insider earlier this month. These roles did not exist two years ago. They represent genuine job creation, not just replacement.

The Pressure to Show Fast Returns

The optimism comes with serious strings attached. More than half of investors surveyed expect AI initiatives to show results in under six months. That timeline is aggressive. Building AI systems, training models, integrating them into workflows, and measuring business impact typically takes longer than six months.

The expectation gap between CEO patience and investor demands creates pressure. CEOs may be willing to experiment and iterate. Investors want returns now. This tension will shape how companies approach AI hiring in 2026.

Companies that hire for AI roles face a dilemma: invest in training junior workers who need time to become productive, or compete for scarce experienced talent who can deliver faster but cost significantly more. The Teneo survey suggests CEOs are willing to hire entry-level workers, but those hires will need to show value quickly.

The Contradiction in the Data

The Teneo findings clash with other recent research. SignalFire, a data-driven VC firm tracking job movements of over 600 million employees and 80 million companies on LinkedIn, found that Big Tech companies reduced hiring of new graduates by 25 percent in 2024 compared to 2023. Graduate recruitment at startups decreased by 11 percent.

The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 warned that 40 percent of employers expect to reduce staff where AI can automate tasks. "Five years ago, there was a real war for coders and developers. There was bidding to hire, and 90 percent of the hires were for off-the-shelf technical roles," said Vahid Haghzare, director at IT hiring firm Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment in Dubai. Since AI rose, "it has dropped dramatically. I don't even think it's touching 5 percent. It's almost completely vanished."

So which version is true? Both, probably. The tech sector may be cutting entry-level technical roles that AI can now handle. But companies across other sectors are hiring entry-level workers to support AI implementation, manage AI-augmented processes, and fill newly created positions. The job market is not monolithic.

What This Means for Job Seekers

If you are entering the job market in 2026, the Teneo survey offers some good news: demand for entry-level talent tied to AI appears strong. But the nature of those roles is changing. Generic junior positions doing routine tasks face pressure. Roles that require judgment, creativity, client interaction, or cross-functional collaboration look more secure.

Recent graduates need to demonstrate AI fluency even for non-technical roles. Understanding how to work alongside AI tools, how to prompt systems effectively, and how to validate AI outputs are becoming baseline expectations across industries. These skills matter as much as traditional qualifications in many hiring decisions now.

The competition for AI-related roles remains intense. A report from Study.com found that entry-level AI jobs are growing as quickly, sometimes faster, than senior roles. But employers hiring for early-career AI positions value a mix of technical and soft skills. Familiarity with generative AI tools, basic analytics, cloud fundamentals, plus communication and problem-solving abilities make candidates competitive.

Universities are responding. Several institutions have struck major deals with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI to turn their schools into AI training grounds. The question is whether education can keep pace with how quickly the job market is evolving.

Anders Humlum, assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, says predictions about AI's long-term labor market impact remain uncertain. "Historically, technological advancements have not harmed employment rates in the long run, but there are short-term impacts along the way," noted Josh Bersin Company analyst Kathi Enderes. "The entry-level careers of recent graduates are most affected, which could have lasting effects as they continue to grow their careers with less experience while finding fewer job opportunities."

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