ServiceNow CEO Predicts 30% College Grad Unemployment Due to AI

Unemployment for new college graduates “could easily go into the mid-30s in the next couple of years,” Bill McDermott, whose company offers an AI platform for employers, said in an interview Friday (March 13) with CNBC.

“So much of the work is going to be done by agents,” So it’s going to be challenging for young people to differentiate themselves in the corporate environment,” he added.

The report noted that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York put the unemployment rate for recent college graduates at the end of 2025 at about 5.7%. New graduates also faced an underemployment rate of 42.5%, the highest level since 2020.

Meanwhile, companies across industries are laying off workers and reducing costs thanks to new AI tools, CNBC added. Among them is Block, which announced last month that it plans to eliminate close to half its workforce amid greater AI automation.

The report pointed to expert opinion arguing that, compared to past tech revolutions, AI is doing away with many white-collar jobs, including in the coding and marketing space, while letting businesses reduce hiring and boost productivity with fewer employees. 

McDermott told CNBC that his company’s tools will help businesses cut hiring costs, adding that the software firm has already taken out 90% of the customer service use cases that had once relied on humans.

“I do think it’s coming quicker than people anticipate,” he said.

After the Block layoff news broke last month, PYMNTS wrote that while AI-related job cuts invariably lead to fears of a larger employment crisis, current labor research shows a more complicated picture.

That report cited findings from the World Economic Forum which contended that while automation and AI will some certain tasks, they will also bring about new categories of work, especially in data, AI oversight, cybersecurity and human-centric services.

The report stresses transition rather than permanent contraction. A large portion of workers’ skills are expected to evolve over the next five years, which will require retraining and adaptation. 

“The pressure is real, but it is directional. Roles centered on routine information processing are most exposed. Roles combining domain expertise, judgment and technological fluency are expanding,” PYMNTS added.

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster has argued that 2026 will be the year AI in which adoption shifts from experimentation to operational reality. 

“Instead of pilot projects and chat interfaces, companies are embedding AI into payments flows, customer engagement systems and enterprise software stacks,” the report said. “Once intelligence is part of the infrastructure, it reshapes the organization itself.”

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