What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in late November, which for most people meant early January due to the December break.

General agents (OpenClaw, Anthropic Copilot, ChatGPT "Work") started working even later than that.

This category of software may have a much more meaningful impact on work than the mostly-chat systems we were using from 2022-2025.

Studies that mainly focus on 2022 to end of 2025 might be missing out on a material uptick in capabilities.

Recently poked around the job market to see what I qualify for in this day and age. Working as a solo builder in my org I would say that I have done enough in the last 18 months to consider myself “with it”.

What I found was pretty brutal. Companies asking for 4 years of agentic AI experience… pardon?

Then it hit me.

Oh they are all making shit up now and have no bar that anyone can hit because they are believing in the hype without understanding the fundamentals.

GREAT. Even as I climb the AI-Native ranks, I apparently am unqualified for any AI-Native job.

Organizational inertia is a real thing. There are still fortune 500 companies with internal bans on AI. A lot of the answer to "how much impact has AI had" comes down to "how much have we even attempted?"

In my workplace, we're going to decline to renew some software subscriptions because a non-programmer vibe-coded their replacement in a week.

The impacts are here, they're just not evenly distributed yet.

Every job loss and suicide is a dollar in an AI investor’s pocket.

By now I feel I can write these articles:

- benefits of AI murky to slightly positive

- hiring impact limited except for junior level

The problem is that these two statements each have massive implications, so instead of treating these findings as point in time snapshots they are the whole ballgame and should be explored in depth.

I don't feel like reading an article that will probably be out of date in 6 months, but from what I've seen, if agents keep improving at this rate, 80% of SWEs are going to be looking for new careers in 5 years.