Senior technology executives and business leaders are increasingly warning that a traditional long-term career planning may no longer match the pace of change caused by artificial intelligence.
Speaking to graduates at Brandeis University in Massachusetts this week, former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said young workers should avoid treating career paths as fixed roadmaps.
“Don’t script your career when the future is uncertain,” Sandberg told the graduating class. “You don’t need a 10-year plan. If I had one, I would have missed the internet.”
Sandberg said the rapid shifts in technology are changing industries too quickly for a rigid career plan to remain practical. She pointed to her own career path after graduating from Harvard University in 1991, before the modern internet economy emerged.
After working at the US Treasury Department during the administration of former president Bill Clinton, she later joined Google when the company was still small and commercially unproven.
“There were days when I thought I would never find one,” she said of her search for work after leaving government. “When I finally got an offer, I worried that the company might not even survive.”
There has been growing concerns about the effect of artificial intelligence on employment, particularly for younger workers and graduates entering the labour market.
The World Economic Forum said in January 2025 that nearly half of employers worldwide expected to reduce parts of their workforce within four years because of automation and AI tools.
Technology executives including Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have also warned that entry-level white-collar jobs could face significant disruption as AI systems improve.
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban said routine office work such as bookkeeping, data entry, customer support and basic research tasks may face increasing pressure from automation, especially at large companies adopting AI systems to reduce costs.
However, Cuban argued the shift is more likely to alter jobs, not to eliminate work entirely.
Ryan Roslansky also questioned the value of rigid long-term career planning during a recent podcast appearance.
“In reality, when you know technology and the labour market and everything is moving beneath you, I think having a five-year plan is a little bit foolish,” he said.
At the same time, some executives said abandoning long-term goals completely may create its own risks.
Dan Rogers said workers still need a broad sense of direction even if career paths become less predictable.
“It’s probably the case that you can’t achieve your goals if you don’t know what your goals are,” Rogers said.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates has argued that some sectors are likely to remain heavily dependent on human judgement and creativity despite advances in AI. He identified complex software engineering, scientific research and energy systems management as areas where human oversight may remain difficult to replace fully.
For many Gen Z graduates, these points could mean focusing less on fixed timelines and more on adaptable skills, continuous learning and the flexibility to work alongside AI systems.
