Canaries in the Coal Mine? (Stanford, August 2026): young workers in AI-exposed jobs are 19% below peers
Brynjolfsson, Chandar and Chen's revised study uses ADP payroll records covering millions of US workers through June 2026 to set out six facts about work after generative AI. There is no sign of broad, economy-wide job losses. But employment of 22 to 25 year olds in the most AI-exposed occupations now sits 19% below where it would be had it tracked less-exposed peers, up from 13% when the paper first appeared in August 2025, while experienced workers show no comparable gap. The effect comes through reduced hiring rather than layoffs, is concentrated where AI substitutes for tasks rather than complements them, and shows up in employment rather than pay. It holds when excluding tech firms and controlling for interest rates and remote work.
The authors call these descriptive early indicators, not causal estimates, and publish a set of public AI Economic Indicators to track them.
For AI founders, this is the most careful evidence yet on where AI is changing hiring, and a reminder that products that complement experienced workers are landing differently from those that substitute for entry-level tasks.
