While AI is often cited as one of the reasons for mass layoffs, particularly in the technology sector, for fast-growing companies it also appears to be creating new jobs at many companies, according to a study released Tuesday by financial services company Ramp and employment database Revelio Labs.
“Our initial finding is that it appears that companies are starting to look for more entry-level hires, probably people who are more native to AI,” said Ara Kharazian, chief economist at Ramp, a financial services firm that found an increase in early hiring by companies in the period when they started spending heavily on AI.
He study tracked AI spending and workforce records for nearly 22,000 US companies between January 2021 and February 2026.
It found that companies that spent the most on AI ended up increasing their workforce by an average of 10% over the two years after the technology was launched. Companies that made the biggest investment in AI expanded entry-level job hiring by 12%.
“If you're looking for a job or graduating from college and choosing between two different companies that are otherwise similar, I would choose the one that uses AI,” Kharazian said. “Our article shows that company is going to grow faster.”
Early, heavy AI adopters spent more than $100 per month per employee on AI and had their employees use advanced AI, such as coding subscriptions, rather than simple ChatGPT subscriptions.
Casual, low-intensity users of AI saw no increase in hiring and reduced headcount.
The Ramp study showed a positive effect of AI on employment because it focused on companies that adopt AI, many of them fast-growing companies backed by companies that hire AI-native junior employees.
It came to a different conclusion than a Stanford University study from November 2025, which examined payroll data across the labor market and found that employment among young software developers had declined nearly 20% from its late 2022 peak.
Both findings may be true, Kharazian said, because the Stanford study was broader and didn't just focus on companies using AI.
“While there may be weak hiring overall for young people, what we found is that hiring is actually strong in companies that use AI and in companies that use it heavily,” he said.
In another recent study on the impact of AI on employment, the California AI Unemployment Tracker examined the state across industries, education levels, and regions and highlighted some concerning trends.
It seemed to refute the understanding that AI has primarily been harming younger employees and those in entry-level positions.
It found that unemployment insurance claims among college-educated workers in jobs highly exposed to AI, such as customer service and software development, increased after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 and remained elevated through May 2026.
Unemployment insurance claims among master's and doctoral degree holders in occupations highly exposed to AI have also increased, rising from a baseline average of 13,000 claims per month in November 2022 to between 16,000 and 22,000 claims per month since mid-2023, according to the study.
The study also classified unemployment claims by age and found that a significant portion of claims were from people between the ages of 36 and 65, indicating that the AI effect is not just affecting early-career jobs.
It also found a higher rate of insurance claims in the San Francisco Bay Area compared to the rest of California, and that job loss claims were concentrated in the technology sector.
By 2026, technology companies will have shed more than 160,000 workersaccording to trueup.io, a website that tracks industry layoffs.
Many companies have said that AI was one of the main reasons for the layoffs. Meta, Oracle, Microsoft and other big tech companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees while investing billions in AI data centers.
Ramp's findings that heavy adoption of AI can lead to increased hiring suggests that some of the companies announcing big layoffs may be guilty of blaming AI for regular cost cuts, a practice called “AI washing.”
“When you hear CEOs talk about layoffs and they attribute it to AI, I would be skeptical,” Kharazian said.
