A new Harvard-led study finds that generative AI adoption is transforming the American workplace, thinning the ranks of entry-level employees while leaving senior positions largely untouched.
Researchers from Harvard University examined data from 285,000 US firms between 2015 and 2025, tracking résumé and job-posting records across industries to measure the early effects of AI adoption.
The paper, titled Generative AI as Seniority-Biased Technological Change, concludes that firms integrating generative AI systems are experiencing a rapid divergence in hiring trends.
“Following adoption, junior employment declines sharply in adopting firms relative to non-adopters, while senior employment remains largely unchanged.”
They find that the drop in lower-tier roles is most severe in occupations directly exposed to generative AI tools such as chatbots, coding assistants and creative-content systems. The researchers highlight that the decline in junior roles is driven by slower hiring rather than an increase in separations or promotions.
“Our analysis shows that adoption of GenAI was minimal and relatively stable prior to 2023, but accelerated sharply thereafter, with a surge of new firms posting integrator roles following the release of advanced GenAI tools in late November 2022.”
According to the study, 10,599 firms in its sample group have adopted generative AI as of March this year. While the figure accounts for 3.7% of the firms in the sample, those companies accounted for 17.3% of total employment, making their labor decisions disproportionately influential.
“Beginning in 2023 Q1—coinciding with the sharp increase in GenAI adoption—junior employment in adopting firms decreased steeply relative to controls, declining by about 9% after six quarters.”
Meanwhile, the study finds that senior employment “showed no sign of a break in trend after 2022.”
The authors argue that generative AI substitutes most easily for “intellectually mundane tasks” typically assigned to new hires, warning that “if GenAI disproportionately substitutes for entry-level tasks, the lower rungs of these career ladders may be eroding.”
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