For months, the loudest voices in synthetic intelligence—together with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei—warned that entry-level white-collar jobs have been headed for extinction. In current weeks, each have walked again these statements.
And in line with Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S., who oversees a workforce of greater than 350,000 workers, the outcry wasn’t simply a prediction gone incorrect—it was fearmongering.
“There was a little little bit of fearmongering from studying about the indisputable fact that there’s going to be a collapse of jobs,” Kumar mentioned at Fortune’s COO Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona on Monday. “I feel there will likely be extra jobs.”
Cognizant hasn’t been proof against restructuring and layoffs as it really works to remodel for the AI period. However Kumar advised Fortune’s government editorial director Diane Brady that the firm employed 20,000 entry-level faculty graduates final year alone—and expects that quantity to develop in 2026.
A few of these roles will probably fall underneath Cognizant’s new AI Builder technique, which introduces two new positions: Frontier Licensed Engineer and Frontier Enterprise Operator. And despite the fact that his firm is targeted in the tech world, candidates don’t want a technical background to qualify.
“It may very well be a historical past main with abilities to establish and use agentic work. It may very well be a biology main generally known as life sciences. It may very well be an HR accountant who can use agentic Claude terminals round them,” he mentioned.
The workforce pyramid will start to flatten, Kumar added, as there stays a want for each entry-level staff—in addition to leaders to information instructions (he known as the chief operations officer the most vital position in any firm). However in the center, he mentioned, is the place AI will take cost.
“AIs will likely be in the center of a stream. You wish to have a ton of jobs in the entrance, you should have a ton of jobs in the again,” he mentioned. “These are going to be validation and verification jobs, and these are going to be authentication jobs. Now, when you might have a flat-earth pyramid, the largest problem is the center layers are going to be leaner.”
Cognizant’s CEO says tokenmaxxing has measured AI all incorrect
As firms have raced to display AI productiveness beneficial properties, many have turned to token consumption as their major measuring stick. Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI are amongst those who have leaned on token metrics as an inside measure of productiveness. Kumar thinks that’s the incorrect method.
“For the final two years, the way you consumed tokens, how a lot tokens you consumed was a self-importance metric,” he mentioned. “…I don’t assume it’s best to equate this to the variety of paid hours. I don’t assume it’s best to equate this to productiveness.”
As a substitute, Kumar argued that figuring out how and when to deploy tokenization strategically will turn out to be a self-discipline in its personal proper — one which particular person groups might want to develop and refine primarily based on their particular workflows and enterprise targets.
“It must be grounded in the firm’s hustle,” he mentioned in the Fortune dialog titled “Nice Restructuring: Rethinking Expertise Technique in the Age of AI.”
The broader shift, in Kumar’s view, is away from measuring inputs fully: “Now we have to go from delivering tasks, delivering billable hours, proudly owning outcomes, and lastly now we have to underwrite these outcomes and be paid for these outcomes. I feel that is the future. I consider we’re going to reforge, and whoever reforges this future is going to be a winner on the different aspect.”
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