AI job fears, graduate optimism clash

The story is less "AI apocalypse" than "career ladder reshaping." The near-term pain is real, but the winners are likely to be grads who can use AI as a tool instead of treating it as a pure threat.

• –Employers are already using AI to cut down on junior hires and raise expectations for speed and output.
• –Design is a useful canary: if a field built on taste and iteration feels pressure, office-entry roles elsewhere will feel it too.
• –The upside is that graduates who can pair domain skills with AI fluency may become more valuable, not less.
• –The real failure mode is education lagging the market, leaving graduates technically qualified but practically underprepared.