Companies embracing artificial intelligence are expanding their workforces faster than those that have not adopted the technology, but the employment gains are heavily concentrated among experienced employees, raising questions about career opportunities for younger Americans.
New data from workforce analytics company Revelio Labs shows that businesses adopting AI have recorded 27% greater headcount growth than non-adopters since late 2022. However, the difference between senior and junior positions is striking.
Senior employment at AI-adopting companies has grown 31%, compared with just 6% for junior roles, according to the company’s AI Labor Market Tracker, updated Thursday.
The findings complicate the argument that AI adoption automatically leads to fewer jobs. Companies investing in the technology can continue expanding, but the opportunities may not be distributed evenly across their workforces.
They also raise a longer-term question: If businesses increasingly favor experienced professionals, where will the next generation of senior employees come from?
Revelio Labs tracks changes in the U.S. workforce using employment histories, job postings and other labor-market information. Its research distinguishes between occupations that are exposed to AI and companies that have actually adopted the technology.
That distinction matters because a job can involve tasks that AI could potentially perform without the employer necessarily using AI to replace them.
Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, employment in occupations with the greatest exposure to AI has grown about 4% less than employment in the least-exposed occupations.
At the same time, companies identified as AI adopters have expanded their workforces substantially faster than other businesses.
However, the researchers caution that these companies were already growing faster before adopting AI. The findings therefore do not establish that AI caused their stronger employment growth.
They do show that expanding AI use and growing workforces can coexist, even as junior employees see significantly smaller gains than senior workers.
The difference is particularly visible in the U.S. banking industry, where junior employment has declined while senior positions have continued expanding.
A separate Revelio Labs analysis of U.S. banks, published Oct. 13 and updated Oct. 22, found that junior headcount was 4.7% below its October 2022 level.
Senior banking positions, meanwhile, continued growing at roughly their pre-ChatGPT pace. The decline in junior employment was driven largely by reduced recruitment rather than a surge in employees leaving their jobs.
Junior hiring fell from about 10.5% of junior headcount before ChatGPT’s launch to approximately 8.5% during 2024 and 2025, before recovering in 2026. The changes were especially noticeable in commercial and retail banking, where financial institutions have been shifting resources toward technology and digital services.
Between 2015 and 2025, technology roles’ share of labor costs at commercial and retail banks increased from 12% to 17.4%, while the share going to client-facing sales roles declined.
The researchers said the shift appeared to reflect the industry’s broader move toward digital banking rather than simply AI replacing junior employees. Higher interest rates and changing business conditions may also have contributed to weaker recruitment.
Nevertheless, the trend presents a potential challenge for employers because junior positions have traditionally provided the experience needed to move into management and other senior roles.
Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that the impact of AI on younger workers may depend partly on how companies choose to use it.
An MIT study published in April examined how more than 20 companies across industries including finance, healthcare, retail and manufacturing were experimenting with generative AI.
Researchers Ben Armstrong and Julie Shah found that businesses were using the technology to handle routine work, bring together specialized knowledge and help inexperienced workers complete complex assignments.
In some workplaces, AI allowed employees to move away from repetitive tasks toward reviewing, supervising and troubleshooting automated systems.
The researchers also found that AI could help less-experienced employees develop capabilities that would otherwise take longer to acquire.
But these changes did not always produce the same kind of work. Some employees were assigned repetitive AI-output reviews, while others took on more demanding responsibilities requiring judgment and technical expertise.
The findings suggest that employers’ decisions about training and job design could play an important role in determining whether AI improves career development or limits opportunities to gain experience.