By Rachel Wolfe and Te-Ping Chen

Jackson Curtis planned to spend his career in insurance, where he's worked the last 3 1/2 years. Instead, the 28-year-old is now pursuing an abrupt shift: becoming a full-time firefighter.

Curtis, who lives outside Tacoma, Wash., fears that artificial intelligence is coming for his office job, which mostly involves data entry. And he thinks rising up the career ladder would still leave him vulnerable.

"Even if they can come up with a way to utilize AI to fight fires, people are always going to want that empathy from an actual human who actually cares during a moment of crisis," Curtis said.

AI's workplace impact, including its potential to help careers, remains more the subject of economics papers than hard evidence. But young people, especially those just launching into long working lives ahead of them, are starting to navigate their future career choices with AI in mind.

Some are pivoting to blue-collar work or starting their own businesses that may insulate them from the impacts of AI. Others are actively embracing it to try to take advantage of an AI boom and stay ahead of the curve.

"Students definitely know it's going to have an impact, it's just not clear how much of one or what it looks like," said Stacie Gleason, a Hoboken, N.J.-based high school counselor. She said she has daily conversations with seniors who are wondering how AI might affect them.

A recent Harvard survey of Americans between ages 18 and 29 showed that 59% said they saw AI as a threat to their job prospects, with college graduates in particular sharing such concerns. A further 41% said they thought that AI would make work less meaningful.

Stanford University research, meanwhile, found that between late 2022 and September 2025, employment among workers ages 22 to 25 who are highly exposed to AI -- such as software developers and customer service agents -- declined 16% relative to less-exposed occupations.

When Ryder Paredes, 22, began studying computer science as an undergraduate three years ago, "AI was in its infancy, it wasn't very intelligent," the Montclair, N.J., native said. But by last year, AI's abilities had improved so much Paredes feared he wouldn't be employable.

He dropped out of college last year and is now in trade school studying to be an electrician. He isn't alone: Enrollment at vocational-focused community colleges has boomed in recent years, growing by nearly 20% since 2020, according to National Student Clearinghouse data.

"At first I was in denial," Paredes said. "But eventually I had to just face it."

Parents are worried, too, about how AI could upend career prospects for their high school- and college-age kids.

"It's been a lot of dinner table anxiety," said Babith Bhoopalan, who worked for Microsoft in product management and customer experience before founding his own consulting company. To help his 17-year-old daughter, he compiled a career guide analyzing what professional roles couldn't be replicated by AI -- doctors and diplomats were among the safe fields. He shared the guide online, where it has since been viewed by more than 5,500 people.

Other analysis has likewise found that in-person work tends to be more insulated. A recent study by AI company Anthropic, for example, showed that agriculture and construction jobs are less likely to be performed by AI, while jobs such as computer programmers and customer service reps are more vulnerable. A Microsoft analysis last year drew similar conclusions.

Bhoopalan's college-bound daughter, Thea Babith, plans to major in international relations partly because she sees the field as more AI-resistant than her previous career target: finance. "A big part of diplomacy is that genuine human talking," said Babith, who lives in Sammamish, Wa. "I don't think AI is going to take over that specific industry."

A survey last year of 3,020 Americans 16 and older by workforce nonprofit Jobs for the Future showed widespread worry about AI-related job displacement. Among those ages 16 to 34, 44% considered an AI-prompted career shift; for people 55 and up, who are more likely to have established résumés in a single field, the rate was just 4%.

Some young people are actively pursuing careers in AI, seeking an edge. For 21-year-old Vedant Vyas, this meant taking an indefinite leave from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, last April so he could work full-time on his AI startup, Opennote. The San Francisco resident said his college courses felt disconnected from new workforce realities.

The gamble has paid off: Vyas, along with his two co-founders, said he has raised over $4 million to build their company, which he describes as an AI-powered tutor. Rather than waiting for AI to reshape his career, Vyas said, "I get to help decide what we build, who it helps and what new kinds of work it creates."

Embracing AI can feel discordant for a generation that's been told to stay away from the technology for classroom assignments. An NBC voter poll published this month found 61% of respondents ages 18 to 34 said they hold negative views of AI, 15 percentage points higher than the overall total.

"If we keep training it, it'll make it better and we'll lose more jobs," said Ollie Carson, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Texas at Dallas, who also said she's "vehemently against" the technology. Still, she's planning to add a marketing minor -- along with her animation and games major -- in case AI makes finding work in her chosen field too difficult.

In the Tacoma area, Curtis has passed his initial firefighting exam and is currently interviewing with area fire departments. He thinks he'll earn more than in his insurance job, but said he also believes the new job will prove more meaningful.

"I want to work in a career where I'm not just working for a paycheck," he said.

His girlfriend, 25-year-old Jewel Rudolph, feels vindicated by her decision to start a business in 2019 selling açai bowls at farmers markets and not going to college like her mom wanted. "There is security there, knowing AI isn't going to be able to take what I'm doing," Rudolph said.

Across the country in New York City, 25-year-old Luke St. Amand said he gave up a six-figure job working in AI for Amazon.com 2 1/2 years ago to co-found an education startup, in part because he worried he was training his nonhuman replacement. Now, he said he's using AI to help grow his own business, including for grant applications, video production and software development.

"I know I chose the right path," St. Amand said.

Write to Rachel Wolfe at rachel.wolfe@wsj.com and Te-Ping Chen at Te-ping.Chen@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 22, 2026 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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