Microsoft's president says Gen Z's AI backlash should be a wake-up call for Big Tech

• Microsoft President Brad Smith has addressed Gen Z's growing backlash against AI.
• Smith said graduates are right to worry about AI's impact on entry-level jobs.
• He echoed a newly optimistic tech refrain: AI can boost workers, not just replace them.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has a message for tech leaders after college graduates booed AI during this year's commencement speeches: listen.

In a blog post published Wednesday, Smith said recent pushback — including from students about to enter the job market — against AI's role in society should serve as "a powerful wake-up call for the tech sector."

"To those in the tech sector who seemingly want to pursue a future where computers replace jobs, and AI becomes more capable than people, the next generation has offered a compelling response: 'Not so fast,'" Smith wrote.

For years, executives have cast AI as transformative and, at times, warned that its impact on jobs could be brutal.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said last year that AI is becoming so powerful that it could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said in February that computer work "will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months."

So it's perhaps unsurprising that college graduates — who typically fill many of the entry-level office jobs Amodei said will no longer exist — have booed executives like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who painted AI's impact in rosy terms during their graduation speeches.

In his blog post, Smith acknowledged the students' concerns. He said today's graduates face "AI automation of tasks in current entry-level positions" as well as pressure, especially in tech, from companies that are reducing head count while pouring billions into AI infrastructure.

Tech leaders have begun to change their tone in recent weeks, emphasizing productivity gains rather than job losses. Multiple leaders, from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who have also warned about AI displacing jobs, are now emphasizing how it can help employees work more efficiently.

The sunnier messaging comes as AI companies eye public-market debuts and face serious local opposition to the data centers needed to power their products.

Smith has not been a leading voice in the AI jobs-doom chorus. His post, however, echoed that more optimistic refrain now coming from Silicon Valley.

"AI often is at its best when we use it to strengthen existing human capabilities and endeavors," he wrote. "In short, people can use AI to make themselves better."

Still, Smith argued that the AI panic may be getting ahead of reality. He said AI is likely to become one of the most important general-purpose technologies of the next 25 years, but warned that tech leaders often overestimate how quickly new tools will transform society.

"First, they frequently overestimate the arrival of new technology, especially the pace of its impact," he wrote. "And even more importantly, they underestimate the capabilities of people."