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Over the last decade, we’ve invested in over 20 unicorns. The machines will take millions of jobs—but they’ll never lead like a human can

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The World Economic Forum’s latest report produced news of 92 million jobs being eliminated due to AI by 2030. But in that same report was the prediction of an estimated 170 million new jobs, which will create a net gain of 78 million. As leaders who have invested in over 20 unicorns over the last decade and advised hundreds of companies on technological shifts and transformation for decades, we have seen that panic of job loss and skyrocketing unemployment dominate headlines and drive the news cycles, but the whole story always tells a different tale. 

Yes, we will see disruption and job displacement — that’s inevitable. We’ve lived through the tech boom of the ’90s, the birth of the internet, cloud computing, and waves of automation over the past 35 years. Has any of this led to the predicted dystopia? Consider this: in 1991, the global unemployment rate was 5.1%. After three decades of technological revolution and exponential AI growth, the global unemployment rate in 2024 was 4.89%. If you believed only the headlines that followed every technological breakthrough of the past 35 years, you’d assume half the world would be unemployed by now. 

The truth? Technology always creates more than it destroys. 

Increased AI adoption across sectors

That same report from the WEF shows that adoption of AI is growing rapidly, albeit unevenly, across sectors. This isn’t adoption for adoption’s sake. The labor market is being driven in this direction by four powerful forces. 

● AI automation: Almost 60% of firms (nearly 85% of large firms) implemented automation over the last 12 months. 

● Economic pressures: For companies to stay competitive, they are looking for efficiency in every aspect of their operation. The use of AI is the surest and fastest way to achieve measurable increases in efficiency. 

● Green transitions: The combination of changes in climate and energy demand is causing enterprises to lean more into green technologies to slow the amount of overhead they must commit to energy. 

● Demographics: Demographic shifts are driving the need for increased roles in the caregiving industry. Aging populations need humans to help them in ways no machine can. Plus, these new and increased roles require entirely new management approaches.

These four forces are already affecting hiring pipelines, budgets, and boardroom strategy. 

Where jobs are emerging

Apart from the aforementioned care-giving sector, a historic employment boom is coming to IT and engineering. Unlike earlier tech booms, this surge is not about speculation and hype, but structural reinvention. The IDC projects AI spending will increase to $632 billion by 2028, signaling not a bubble but the emergence of sustainable growth. 

AI-native product development will come more to the forefront as we see the growth of products being enabled by AI andcompletely designed around it. AI product managers, AI UX designers, and prompt engineers are already becoming fixtures, supported by platforms like Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, and Google Duet AI. These roles speak to the coming era of intelligent software. These are tools that learn, adapt, and anticipate. They will in turn, require builders who can manage and adapt to human needs with machine learning in real time.

The infrastructure aspect of this new age is just as transformative. AI-driven Cloud and DevOps (collectively called AIOps) will change how enterprises manage scale. New categories such as MLOps engineers, AI Cloud architects, observability engineers, and incident prediction analysts are emerging and growing in demand. The humans in these positions must be able to design systems that can anticipate failures, self-optimize, and operate with resilience at levels far beyond human monitoring. This moves the cloud from being elastic to being predictive.

There will be an increased risk associated with this growth. Cybersecurity and AI trust will be as integral to competitive advantage as innovation. As governments roll out the EU AI Act, National Institute of Standards and Technology standards, and similar regulations, companies will need AI cyber analysts, LLM red teamers, and AI risk officers to safeguard not only networks but the algorithms that drive them. Leaders whoexperience the most success now will be those who build trust into their products with as much thought and strategy as they build in features. They will understand that explainability and compliance are strategic assets.

As the growth of AI infrastructure increases, data engineers and knowledge designers will become as central as application developers once were. Enterprise knowledge ecosystems from retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines to vector databases and knowledge graphs are poised to create new categories of work. Plus, in nearly every vertical (finance, healthcare, legal, HR), AI specializations will generate hybrid roles where you not only need to master the functions of that role, but you’ll also need to be an expert in how to leverage AI to augment your duties and increase your output and efficiency. These types of positions will be drivers of industry-specific disruption.

Adaptation is non-negotiable. Software engineers must evolve into AI-assisted developers, DevOps professionals into AIOps specialists, and product managers into AI-native strategists. UX designers will focus on explainability and trust design, reshaping how people interact with intelligent systems. Those who move fastest will define the rules of the AI economy itself.

Humans have to lead

Hybrid Intelligence Operations demand executives who can create synergies between human creativity and machine execution that neither could achieve alone. AI cannot replace leadership, judgment, ethical decision-making, or vision. AI is a tool, perhaps the most powerful ever created, but it is useless without proper human oversight and leadership. 

In the arena of AI Ethics and Governance, leaders will need to serve as directors of societal responsibility. They must decide what constitutes ethical AI deployment and have the courageand backbone to stop when profit optimization crosses the line into human cost. These decisions cannot be algorithmic. They demand judgment, empathy, and ethics.

Cross-Functional Integration is becoming critical as we see traditional org charts becoming less and less relevant. Leaders have to be able to speak to and negotiate between technical, financial, regulatory, and human teams to foster solutions across age gaps, personality differences, and functional silos. 

AI can forecast trends, but only leaders can paint compelling pictures of the future that inspire teams to embrace change rather than resist it. Creating a strategic vision and being able to emotionally sell it to the team via storytelling is something no AI will ever be able to do as well as a human. Machines can execute, but they’ll never lead; humans must combine AI scale with human leadership.

How to win the future

The age of a leader delegating tasks and managing workflows no longer exists in successful businesses, as AI can handle most operational tasks. Leaders must evolve or risk becoming as automated as the roles they once managed. To do this, focus on uniquely human capabilities in your employees and hone those skills. These will be the core assets of an AI-driven world.

Begin redesigning your organization now around human skills and phase out traditional hierarchies. Drill down and find out what your people bring that is uniquely human. Double down on developing those attributes to their maximum potential. 

Then, teach and show teams that AI is a human multiplier, not a human replacement. Prove to them that technology is a competitive advantage that helps them become the most powerful version of themselves at work. Your teams need to understand not just how AI works, but how it helps them while also helping the company. The more they understand, the less they fear, and the more they buy in. 

The winning leaders of this decade will be those who recognize and show their teams that AI isn’t a threat to human jobs, it’s an augmentor of human capability. The leaders and companies that accomplish this will remember 2025-2030 not for jobs lost, but for becoming pioneers of the age of human-AI partnerships, reshaping entire industries.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.



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Senate Dems’ plan to fix Obamacare premiums adds nearly $300 billion to deficit, CRFB says

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December 5, 2025

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a nonpartisan watchdog that regularly estimates how much the U.S. Congress is adding to the $38 trillion national debt.

With enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire within days, some Senate Democrats are scrambling to protect millions of Americans from getting the unpleasant holiday gift of spiking health insurance premiums. The CRFB says there’s just one problem with the plan: It’s not funded.

“With the national debt as large as the economy and interest payments costing $1 trillion annually, it is absurd to suggest adding hundreds of billions more to the debt,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas wrote in a statement on Friday afternoon.

The proposal, backed by members of the Senate Democratic caucus, would fully extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years, from 2026 through 2028, with no additional income limits on who can qualify. Those subsidies, originally boosted during the pandemic and later renewed, were designed to lower premiums and prevent coverage losses for middle‑ and lower‑income households purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges.

CRFB estimated that even this three‑year extension alone would add roughly $300 billion to federal deficits over the next decade, largely because the federal government would continue to shoulder a larger share of premium costs while enrollment and subsidy amounts remain elevated. If Congress ultimately moves to make the enhanced subsidies permanent—as many advocates have urged—the total cost could swell to nearly $550 billion in additional borrowing over the next decade.

Reversing recent guardrails

MacGuineas called the Senate bill “far worse than even a debt-financed extension” as it would roll back several “program integrity” measures that were enacted as part of a 2025 reconciliation law and were intended to tighten oversight of ACA subsidies. On top of that, it would be funded by borrowing even more. “This is a bad idea made worse,” MacGuineas added.

The watchdog group’s central critique is that the new Senate plan does not attempt to offset its costs through spending cuts or new revenue and, in their view, goes beyond a simple extension by expanding the underlying subsidy structure.

The legislation would permanently repeal restrictions that eliminated subsidies for certain groups enrolling during special enrollment periods and would scrap rules requiring full repayment of excess advance subsidies and stricter verification of eligibility and tax reconciliation. The bill would also nullify portions of a 2025 federal regulation that loosened limits on the actuarial value of exchange plans and altered how subsidies are calculated, effectively reshaping how generous plans can be and how federal support is determined. CRFB warned these reversals would increase costs further while weakening safeguards designed to reduce misuse and error in the subsidy system.

MacGuineas said that any subsidy extension should be paired with broader reforms to curb health spending and reduce overall borrowing. In her view, lawmakers are missing a chance to redesign ACA support in a way that lowers premiums while also improving the long‑term budget outlook.

The debate over ACA subsidies recently contributed to a government funding standoff, and CRFB argued that the new Senate bill reflects a political compromise that prioritizes short‑term relief over long‑term fiscal responsibility.

“After a pointless government shutdown over this issue, it is beyond disappointing that this is the preferred solution to such an important issue,” MacGuineas wrote.

The off-year elections cast the government shutdown and cost-of-living arguments in a different light. Democrats made stunning gains and almost flipped a deep-red district in Tennessee as politicians from the far left and center coalesced around “affordability.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly smelling blood in the water and doubling down on the theme heading into the pivotal midterm elections of 2026. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania soon to discuss pocketbook anxieties. But he is repeating predecessor Joe Biden’s habit of dismissing inflation, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.

“We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything,” Trump said in a Tuesday cabinet meeting, in which he also dismissed affordability as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.​

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now face a politically fraught choice: allow premiums to jump sharply—including in swing states like Pennsylvania where ACA enrollees face double‑digit increases—or pass an expensive subsidy extension that would, as CRFB calculates, explode the deficit without addressing underlying health care costs.



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Netflix–Warner Bros. deal sets up $72 billion antitrust test

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December 5, 2025

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Netflix Inc. has won the heated takeover battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Now it must convince global antitrust regulators that the deal won’t give it an illegal advantage in the streaming market. 

The $72 billion tie-up joins the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie studios. It would reshape the market for online video content by combining the No. 1 streaming player with the No. 4 service HBO Max and its blockbuster hits such as Game Of Thrones, Friends, and the DC Universe comics characters franchise.  

That could raise red flags for global antitrust regulators over concerns that Netflix would have too much control over the streaming market. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review and a possible US lawsuit seeking to block the deal if it doesn’t adopt some remedies to get it cleared, analysts said.

“Netflix will have an uphill climb unless it agrees to divest HBO Max as well as additional behavioral commitments — particularly on licensing content,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Rie. “The streaming overlap is significant,” she added, saying the argument that “the market should be viewed more broadly is a tough one to win.”

By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. has jilted another bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, and the company has touted their longstanding close ties to President Donald Trump. Their acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from Trump. 

Comcast Corp. also made a bid for Warner Bros., looking to merge it with its NBCUniversal division.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal on its face because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.

The White House, the Justice Department and Comcast didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.

“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare,” Warren said after the Netflix announcement. Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that a Warner Bros.-Netflix tie-up would raise more serious competition questions “than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.”

European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review amid pressure from legislators. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.

The combined company could raise prices and broadly impact “culture, film, cinemas and theater releases,”said Andreas Schwab, a leading member of the European Parliament on competition issues, after the announcement.

Paramount has sought to frame the Netflix deal as a non-starter. “The simple truth is that a deal with Netflix as the buyer likely will never close, due to antitrust and regulatory challenges in the United States and in most jurisdictions abroad,” Paramount’s antitrust lawyers wrote to their counterparts at Warner Bros. on Dec. 1.

Appealing directly to Trump could help Netflix avoid intense antitrust scrutiny, New Street Research’s Blair Levin wrote in a note on Friday. Levin said it’s possible that Trump could come to see the benefit of switching from a pro-Paramount position to a pro-Netflix position. “And if he does so, we believe the DOJ will follow suit,” Levin wrote.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos had dinner with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last December, a move other CEOs made after the election in order to win over the administration. In a call with investors Friday morning, Sarandos said that he’s “highly confident in the regulatory process,” contending the deal favors consumers, workers and innovation. 

“Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need,” he said.

Netflix will likely argue to regulators that other video services such as Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the company’s perceived dominance.

The US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses, isn’t expected to play a role in the deal, as neither hold such licenses. Warner Bros. plans to spin off its cable TV division, which includes channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT, before the sale.

Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. 

Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.



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The rise of AI reasoning models comes with a big energy tradeoff

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December 5, 2025

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Nearly all leading artificial intelligence developers are focused on building AI models that mimic the way humans reason, but new research shows these cutting-edge systems can be far more energy intensive, adding to concerns about AI’s strain on power grids.

AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, according to a study released Thursday. The work was carried out by the AI Energy Score project, led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce Inc. head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov.

The researchers evaluated 40 open, freely available AI models, including software from OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. Some models were found to have a much wider disparity in energy consumption, including one from Chinese upstart DeepSeek. A slimmed-down version of DeepSeek’s R1 model used just 50 watt hours to respond to the prompts when reasoning was turned off, or about as much power as is needed to run a 50 watt lightbulb for an hour. With the reasoning feature enabled, the same model required 7,626 watt hours to complete the tasks.

The soaring energy needs of AI have increasingly come under scrutiny. As tech companies race to build more and bigger data centers to support AI, industry watchers have raised concerns about straining power grids and raising energy costs for consumers. A Bloomberg investigation in September found that wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% over the past five years in areas near data centers. There are also environmental drawbacks, as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. have previously acknowledged the data center buildout could complicate their long-term climate objectives. 

More than a year ago, OpenAI released its first reasoning model, called o1. Where its prior software replied almost instantly to queries, o1 spent more time computing an answer before responding. Many other AI companies have since released similar systems, with the goal of solving more complex multistep problems for fields like science, math and coding.

Though reasoning systems have quickly become the industry norm for carrying out more complicated tasks, there has been little research into their energy demands. Much of the increase in power consumption is due to reasoning models generating much more text when responding, the researchers said. 

The new report aims to better understand how AI energy needs are evolving, Luccioni said. She also hopes it helps people better understand that there are different types of AI models suited to different actions. Not every query requires tapping the most computationally intensive AI reasoning systems.

“We should be smarter about the way that we use AI,” Luccioni said. “Choosing the right model for the right task is important.”

To test the difference in power use, the researchers ran all the models on the same computer hardware. They used the same prompts for each, ranging from simple questions — such as asking which team won the Super Bowl in a particular year — to more complex math problems. They also used a software tool called CodeCarbon to track how much energy was being consumed in real time.

The results varied considerably. The researchers found one of Microsoft’s Phi 4 reasoning models used 9,462 watt hours with reasoning turned on, compared with about 18 watt hours with it off. OpenAI’s largest gpt-oss model, meanwhile, had a less stark difference. It used 8,504 watt hours with reasoning on the most computationally intensive “high” setting and 5,313 watt hours with the setting turned down to “low.” 

OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google released internal research in August that estimated the median text prompt for its Gemini AI service used 0.24 watt-hours of energy, roughly equal to watching TV for less than nine seconds. Google said that figure was “substantially lower than many public estimates.” 

Much of the discussion about AI power consumption has focused on large-scale facilities set up to train artificial intelligence systems. Increasingly, however, tech firms are shifting more resources to inference, or the process of running AI systems after they’ve been trained. The push toward reasoning models is a big piece of that as these systems are more reliant on inference.

Recently, some tech leaders have acknowledged that AI’s power draw needs to be reckoned with. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the industry must earn the “social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers in a November interview. To do that, he argued tech must use AI to do good and foster broad economic growth.



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