Matt Egan, CNN
Las Vegas – Cisco's president rejects an end-of-day warning from tech leaders that artificial intelligence will destroy entry-level work.
“We refuse to believe that humans will become obsolete. That seems like an absurd concept,” Jeetu Patel, Chief Product Officer of AI infrastructure company Cisco, told CNN.
Patel admits the pain of “people getting confused,” but he pushes back the comments of humanity CEO Dario Amodei, saying that AI will bring unemployment to as many as 20% and eliminate half of white-collar entry-level jobs.
He is one of several technical leaders who have pushed back the story of Amody. Others said that AI is likely to change jobs by requiring new skills to adopt, rather than completely wipe out the job. Still, his comments raise questions about the future of work as entry-level employment rushes and the tech giants increasingly use AI in the workplace.
“Dalio is a friend. We are human investors. I have a lot of respect for what he did. But in this area I have a little different opinions on a few different aspects,” Patel said Wednesday at the AI conference in Las Vegas. “I reject the notion that humans will be abolished in about five years. We're going to have nothing to do and we're sitting on the beach… that doesn't make sense.”
In particular, Patel said he has “big concern” with Amodei's idea that AI can wipe out entry-level jobs, as it benefits from adding young workers, who often understand new technologies.
“If you say, 'I'm going to eradicate all entry-level jobs,' that's a stupid thing businesses can do in the long term because what you did actually take away from the infusion of a new perspective,” said a Cisco executive.
“Really bad strategy”
Patel argued that in some jobs, having important experience can be “large responsibility.” For example, he said people often have assumptions about what they may not have worked five years ago but may now do.
So Patel said he is spending “a huge amount of time” with younger employees and interns.
“I have a fresh and unique perspective, so I learn a lot from people who have just graduated from college, and that perspective combines with (my) experience to create magic,” Patel said. “It would be a really bad strategy to not have early career people or entry-level people injected into the workplace.”
Is AI already hurting entry-level workers?
However, some economists say there are early indications that suggest that AI may already be pushing down entry-level work.
The overall job market has been largely healthy, but the class of 2025 has faced the worst job market for new college graduates over the years.
According to Oxford Economics, only after the pursuit began in 1980 would the unemployment rate for recent graduates (ages 22-27 who earned a bachelor's degree) (ages 22-27 who earned a bachelor's degree) be higher than the national unemployment rate.
According to LinkedIn data, entry-level employment fell 23% between March 2020 and May 2025, surpassing the 18% decline in overall employment over that period.
This happens for a variety of reasons, some of which are unrelated to AI.
However, AI appears to play a role, some economists say. For example, Oxford Economics said employment in two industries that are vulnerable to AI disruptions (computer science and mathematics) has declined by 8% since 2022 for recent graduates. In comparison, employment for older workers has remained largely unchanged in these industries.
“AI is definitely replacing some of these low-level jobs,” Oxford Economics American economist Matthew Martin told CNN in June.
“Ai can't buy you a steak dinner.”
Economists and AI researchers say the most risky tasks include automated repetitive tasks, such as data entry.
“There will be no more administrative work that isn't that interesting. They will be automated. And if you don't automate, they will go out of business,” Alan Ranger, vice president of marketing at Cognigy, told CNN about the AI4 bystanders.
Cognigy will know: it sells conversational AI agents that provide customer support to banks, airlines and other businesses.
The ranger said that Cognigy AI agents came to the rescue when German airline Luftanza had to cancel all flights earlier this year due to a strike in Germany. The technology allowed Lufthansa to rebook thousands of flights per minute, he said.
Rangers argued that companies would not fire customer support workers on a large scale, as humans need to manage AI agents, design software, and tackle other complex issues.
However, he has allowed companies to have fewer customer support workers in the future as they leave and retire from the industry.
“Account Management and Sales roles will not be swapped anytime soon,” Ranger said. “AI can't buy steak dinners.”
Cisco executive Patel said the responsibility resides in the technology industry and society as a whole, ensuring a smooth transition to super intelligent AI.
“In technology, we live in the bubble. We keep thinking, 'Oh, confusion is just a part of it.' But when steel factories worker are confused, they are not quick engineers for AI,” he said.
Patel said there is a lot of retraining and reskills that must be done in parallel with governments and educators.
“The tech community actually has to take some responsibility for this,” he said. “Order you don't do that, because you want to make sure you create some degree of pain in society and avoid it.”
CNN Wire
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