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The conversation around AI is deafening. Headlines shout disruption, executives debate productivity, and experts argue endlessly about timelines. But in the middle of all that noise, Gen Zs response has been surprisingly quiet and that silence is telling. AI replacing entry-level jobs isnt a distant headline, its the elephant in the room. My students know its possible, and they dont treat it as science fiction. What Ive seen isnt fear or denial. Its movement. Instead of getting stuck in what if debates, Gen Z is choosing clarity over panic, quietly steering their careers toward stability in a way thats easy to miss if you only listen for loud signals. Over the past year, Ive spoken with at least a dozen Gen Zers who have completely redirected their career paths. Some have changed college majors midstream; others have opted for what they describe as AI-proof careersfields that feel more stable than what they originally planned. This isnt an isolated trendits becoming a generational pattern. Glassdoors new data makes that shift visible: 70% of Gen Zers say AI at work has made them question their job security. And the conversations Ive had echo that unease, but in a distinctly practical way. One recently graduated high school student told me, I want a job a robot cant take from me. Im leaning toward tradesconstruction especially. Another, more open to AIs role, said: Im thinking healthcare. Its hard to imagine a world where healthcare doesnt need humanity. What struck me most wasnt the content of their answersit was the absence of drama. No grand declarations about the future of work. No panic. Just choices. In their quiet pivots, you can see the outline of a generation that would rather act than speculate. They are sketching the blueprint of the future not with slogans or hashtags, but with deliberate, decisive moves. The data backs this up. A national survey shows 65% of Gen Z believe a college degree alone wont protect them from AI disruption, and 53% are seriously considering blue-collar or skilled trade work, while 47% are eyeing people-centered fields like healthcare or education. Even local headlines echo it: in California, young adults are turning to trades, with some making over $100,000 before age 21, citing AIs threat to office jobs as a key reason. This matters for more than career planning. Its a generational lesson in adaptability. Millennials rerouted during the 2008 recession when jobs disappeared. Gen Z is doing the same now, but with a different twist: AI is the disruptor, and they are responding not with conversation, but with action. And that adaptabilitypivoting early, diversifying career paths, and building resilience without waiting for claritymay be the model that older generations should learn from as work keeps shifting. The Side Hustle Signal The same survey found 57% of Gen Z already have a side hustle, compared to 48% of millennials, 31% of Gen X, and 21% of boomers. When I asked about it, neither Gen Zer I spoke with used the phrase side hustle. One simply said, I thrift and sell on Etsythats basically the same thing. The other added, I restore furniture on the side. Picked it up on TikTok. Thats the telling part. For Gen Z, these pursuits arent dressed up as passion projects with clever brandingtheyre just part of life. Millennials may have turned side projects into brand accounts or hustling personas, but Gen Z just does them quietly. That often leads others to mistake the low-key approach for disengagement, when in fact theyre quietly building, experimenting, and buffering. Whats more, Gen Zs approach is not just practical, its second nature, born from economic volatility. These ventures are about resilience and peace of mind, not validation or status. If Gen Zs quiet hustle is telling, Gen Alphas coming of age may be even sharper. As the first generation born entirely in the 21st century, Gen Alpha is hyper-immersed in tech, digital fluency, and entrepreneurial thinking from day one. Studies show that 76% of them aspire to be their own boss or have side ventures, signaling an innate entrepreneurial mindset. Gen Alpha is growing up with AI, screens, and social media as baseline realitynot novelty. Many will enter a workforce where two-thirds of jobs dont yet exist demanding agility and perhaps, a blurring of main job and side project from the start. If millennials branded their hustle, and Gen Z normalized it, Gen Alpha may simply live it with no label needed and the expectation that multiple streams of work are the status quo. Why It Matters Weve seen this playbook before. Millennials graduated into the 2008 recession and quickly realized the jobs theyd been promisedentry-level corporate ladders, clear promotion trackshad either vanished or shrunk. Many quietly rerouted into fields that felt more durable: tech, healthcare, education. They didnt always frame it as a grand statement, but the pivot reshaped entire sectors. Gen Z is doing something similar in response to AI. They arent waiting for institutions to tell them where things are headedtheyre reading the signals and moving. In some cases, that means choosing stability over prestige. In others, it means doubling down on side projects that create agency and identity beyond a single employer. And again, theyre doing it without much fanfare. The anxiety is real, but the response is practical. Thats the deeper lesson here. Older generations often expect disruption to announce itself with noise: strikes, protests, loud declarations. But Gen Zs pivot shows a quieter kind of adaptabilityone where people act before they talk. They may not spend hours debating AIs impact, but they are already adjusting their choices in ways that will ripple across the economy. For older workers, theres value in paying attention. In a world where disruption is accelerating, the instinct to pivot quickly, experiment on the side, and build multiple paths forward may be the model we all need. Gen Z is showing that resilience isnt just about gritits about agility, foresight, and the humility to change course before its too late.
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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday. When womens leadership community Chief launched in 2019, it set out to provide mentoring and peer-to-peer connections for women already inhabiting the executive level, Fast Company wrote at the time. These women who are at the top are generally alone on an island, cofounder Lindsay Kaplan added. Fast-forward to today: Chief still aims to serve executive women. (The company boasts members from 77% of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500 list of Americas largest businesses by revenue.) However, nearly 20% of the community is much more entrepreneurial, or what the company describes as solopreneurs or senior leaders in transition. One leader, many titles As a result, Chiefs membership reflects the changing face of women in business: a mix of founders, corporate execs, board members, and nonprofit leaders and volunteers, who also happen to toggle among those roles. Theyre taking different paths to leadership and thinking not about a ladder but a lattice, or a more flexible, nonlinear career track, says Alison Moore, CEO of Chief. More than 15 years ago, my former Fortune colleague Pattie Sellers used the analogy of a “jungle gym” to describe such nontraditional professional journeys. Moore points to Chief members such as Rabia Farhang, who built an executive career in retail and fashion before founding BGood Collective, a strategic consultancy focused on purpose-driven organizations, leveraging her business expertise for social impact. At the same time, were seeing prominent businesswomen easily switching from corporate jobs to startups and back. Alicia Boler Davis, whom weve profiled in Modern CEO, worked at General Motors for 25 years, held senior roles at Amazon, became CEO of a fast-growing online pharmacy, and was recently named president of Ford Motors Ford Pro business. Strengths of the multihyphenate Moore believes these varied experiences make Chief members and their peers well-suited to manage in todays fast-changing business world. Whats happening in corporate environments has become increasingly dynamic, Moore explains. Women leaders whove worn or wear many hatsMoore describes them as multihyphenateshave the ability to run teams centered on resilience, efficiency, and execution, she says. Moore speaks from experience: She joined Chief after five years as CEO of Comic Relief U.S. and senior roles at HBO, DailyCandy, NBCUniversal, SoundCloud, and Condé Nast. She was also a founding member of Chief. Each different experience sharpens your leadership skill set, Moore explains. I sit where I am today because Im drawing from all of the experiences that I have had to make me a better leader.” Are you a leader wearing many hats? Does the term multihyphenate refer to your career trajectory? When your role progression isnt linear, how do you decide where to go next? Id love to hear your stories and possibly include them in a future issue of Modern CEO. Send them to me in an email message: stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Read more: women in leadership How women in leadership can shape how others see them Meet Inc.s 2025 Female Founders The CEO I needed didnt exist. So, I became her
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For decades, we’ve been told that technology would liberate us from mundane work, yet somehow we ended up more tethered to our desks than ever. Now, groundbreaking research from GoTo suggests we may finally be reaching the inflection point where artificial intelligence doesn’t just promise freedomit delivers it. But the real revelation isn’t that AI might make offices obsolete. It’s that AI is creating the conditions for what I call “cultivation-centered work”an approach that prioritizes human development over performative productivity. The Great Workplace Liberation The numbers tell a compelling story: 51% of employees believe AI will eventually make physical offices obsolete, while 62% would prefer AI-enhanced remote working over traditional office environments. But here’s what makes this shift profoundit’s not about rejecting human connection. Instead, it’s about reclaiming the autonomy to choose when, where, and how we engage most meaningfully with our work and colleagues. This aligns perfectly with the core principles of my book, Move. Think. Rest. When 71% of workers say AI gives them more flexibility and work-life balance, they’re describing the conditions necessary for true cultivation. They’re talking about having time to think deeply, space to move naturally throughout their day, and permission to rest when their bodies and minds require it. From Extraction to Integration What’s particularly striking about GoTos research is how it reveals AI’s potential to support the full spectrum of human experience at work. Traditional productivity models demanded we compartmentalize ourselvesshow up as disembodied brains focused solely on output. But AI-enhanced work environments are creating space for integration. When employees report that AI allows them to “work anywhere without losing productivity” (66%), they’re really describing the freedom to align their work rhythms with their natural energy cycles. They can take walking meetings in nature, think through problems during movement, and create the environmental conditions that support their best thinking. The Cultivation Disconnect However, the research also reveals a concerning gap that organizations must address. While 91% of IT leaders believe their companies effectively use AI to support distributed teams, only 53% of remote and hybrid employees agree. This disconnect isn’t just about technology deploymentit’s about understanding the difference between using AI to replicate old productivity models versus leveraging it to support human flourishing. The companies bridging this gap successfully are those asking different questions. Instead of “How can AI make people more productive?” they’re asking “How can AI create conditions where people naturally thrive?” They’re designing AI implementations that support the three pillars of cultivation: movement (flexibility to work in various environments), thought (time and space for deep reflection), and rest (permission to disengage and recharge). The Age-Defying Impact One of the most encouraging findings challenges ageist assumptions about technology adoption. The research shows that across all generationsfrom 90% of remote Gen Z workers to 74% of baby boomerspeople report improved productivity through AI-enhanced remote work. This suggests something profound: when technology truly serves human needs rather than demanding adaptation to machine rhythms, people of all ages can benefit. This generational unity points to AI’s potential as an equalizing forcenot in the sense of making everyone the same, but in honoring the diverse ways different people think, process, and contribute. Perhaps most telling is that 61% of employeesincluding those working in officesbelieve organizations should prioritize AI investment over fancy workplace amenities. This isn’t about choosing technology over human experience. It’s about recognizing that true employee experience comes from having the tools and flexibility to do meaningful work in ways that honor their full humanity. The Path Forward As AI reshapes work, we have a choice. We can use it to create more sophisticated forms of surveillance and productivity extraction, or we can leverage it to finally realize the promise of technology serving human flourishing. The organizations that choose the latter will find themselves with a profound competitive advantage: employees who are not just more productive, but more creative, more engaged, and more capable of the kind of breakthrough thinking that drives innovation. The question isn’t whether AI will transform workit already is. The question is whether we’ll use this transformation to create workplaces that cultivate human potential or merely optimize human output. The GoTo research suggests employees are ready for cultivation. The question is: are their leaders?
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