As college graduates commenced this spring, artificial intelligence was a pervasive theme among more than ceremony speeches. For many young Americans, AI has become a specter of uncertainty, raising doubts about whether their first steps into professional life will follow the framework of previous generations.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed this anxiety during his commencement speech to University of Arizona, acknowledging the fear among young graduates that “the future has already been written” and “jobs are evaporating.”
Schmidt struck an optimistic tone about AI’s impending impact on the economy, causing significant backlash during the ceremony. This incident was not isolated: Students at several universities decried speakers who praised or referenced AI’s growing role in the economy.
The apprehension is widespread in public opinion. A 2026 Gallup survey found that Gen Zers are more than three times as likely to say the risks of AI in the workforce outweigh the benefits than to say the reverse. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this month finds 53% of Americans worry AI could put themselves or someone in their household out of work.
Yet AI may not cause much of the job market disruption now associated with it. Some researchers have instead pointed to post-pandemic workplace changes, especially the rise of remote work and its effect on young college graduates entering the workforce.
A Liberty Street Economics study notes that “the uptick in youth unemployment rates predates the rapid diffusion of AI,” signaling that much of the current labor market disruption is due to post-pandemic consequences. AI may be only one facet of a larger shift in how white-collar work is organized.
The distinction matters as policymakers, employers, researchers, and think tanks attempt to determine whether AI will produce a manageable shift in the labor market or a deeper disruption to employment.
This is the question that now confronts the American Enterprise Institute and the Urban Institute, which co-launched the Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the American Workforce on June 11.
Over the course of twelve months, they will evaluate how AI is reshaping jobs, skills, and earnings. The commission looks to develop policy options for workers, employers, and government entities to adapt to AI-caused labor market disruptions.
The Liberty Street Economics study brings into question how to distinguish AI driven job displacement from other labor market changes already underway.
When asked about the challenge, Brent Orrell, AEI senior fellow and co-director of the commission, noted that “for every study, there is a counter study; for every estimate, there is a counter-estimate.”
Orrell said part of the commission’s work will be “getting into the details” of competing labor-market research to determine “the most likely scenarios” facing workers and policymakers.
The coalition is an attempt to “bridge to another chapter” of work, as former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said during the June 11 launch. She calls for a “people strategy – A strategy to ensure that all Americans can successfully get through the transition from where we are to an AI economy.”
The group is positioning itself as a forum for competing evidence and practical recommendations, rather than presenting a one-policy solution. As Americans search for ways to adapt to AI, the commission’s diverse policy solutions aim to relieve their anxiety.
The commission’s leaders argue that their approach is why the project has bipartisan buy-in. There is a strong sense of optimism among the commission that their evidence-based approach to policymaking will “leapfrog” the partisan debates that often end in stalemate.
Sarah Rosen Wartell, president of the Urban Institute and co-leader of the initiative, says the effort is a chance to “find common ground across differing perspectives – so rare in this town today.”
“The entire focus of the commission is on work,” said Robert Doar, president of the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s on employment and it’s on keeping people attached to the labor market and the labor force.”
Doar argued that the commission’s focus on employment reflects a broader appreciation for the role of employment in American life. “Work brings more to people’s lives than just income,” Doar said. “It brings dignity. It brings better health. It brings involvement in community and civic culture.”
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who co-chairs the commission, described AI as a moment “where technological innovation meets the dignity of human work.”
Ryan pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical on artificial intelligence, arguing that the pope’s message grounds the debate: “Economic progress is meaningless if it breaks the dignity of the individual worker.”
The Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the American Workforce’s research hopes to enable Americans “through policy, and also through practice, to deploy AI in a way that creates an economy where workers, communities, employers, the macroeconomy, all thrive.”
