Eric Siu and Neil Patel argue that companies with high AI adoption are actually hiring more, not fewer, people. A Financial Times chart shows firms increased headcount by 10.2% overall and 12% for entry-level roles. They point to Google, Micron, and others expanding staff as AI enables new capabilities, and compare it to past tech shifts like ATMs and spreadsheets that created more jobs than they destroyed.
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Did you see here, this chart over here? So this is from Financial Times. I'm sure you might have seen it already. Yeah, looks familiar.
Yes.
Okay, so I'm going to read it off right here. So companies that spend more on AI also increase worker numbers, right? So change in headcount by intensity of use. So this is all jobs on the left side over here. You can see that 10.2% average increase for companies that have high AI adoption, right? And then low AI adoption, no change basically. Now, if you go to the right side, if we're talking about entry level, 12% average increase, high AI adoption companies, and then you have low AI adoption, no change. It kind of went down. slightly. And then this has been months since AI adoption, about 20 months or so. Here's the caveat that I want to add. So a lot of people are saying like, oh, what's the ROI on this stuff, right? So I just want to keep in mind for everyone that this stuff didn't really start to take off until December 2025. The last week of December 2025 is when everything went parabolic, at least for me. And so it hasn't even been a year yet. I was just thinking about it this morning. I was like, dude, it's— we're only like 7 months into this, the new step change, and like it just keeps getting crazier and crazier. So I don't know about you, like I'll just speak to my experience first. I want to hear from yours. I do, I am looking for more people, definitely, especially on entry level. I'm looking for a little more because they don't come with a lot of bad behaviors, but you do need experienced people too, right? So I, for me, I do look at this as job increase for people that are AI native. Go ahead.
I was having a debate with this with a guy named Monik who is a founder or co-founder of Search Atlas SEO tool.
Oh yeah.
And He believes that AI is going to cause massive work reduction in white-collar jobs.
We should define white-collar.
So white-collar is like corporate jobs, not someone flipping burgers.
Yep.
I can see AI causing huge disruptions in blue-collar jobs for things like flipping burgers, but not things like repairing your roof or your plumbing or things like that, right? And I was telling him, we're seeing the opposite in white-collar jobs. I don't have good data on this. And I told him, I'm like, look dude, I'm not into AI like you. And he's talking about his mentors like at Anthropic and some of the leaders. I'm like, I don't have those people who are my mentors or anything like that, so I don't see what you see. But I'm like, we work with hundreds if not thousands of companies globally and we haven't seen really any reductions in headcount. The reductions in headcount we see are from people who really quote unquote just overhire. And he's talking about efficiency. And he used Google, I believe it was Google as example, or we were talking about Google. And what I was getting at is there's a few oddball companies like Google and Meta, or maybe Nvidia, or maybe some of the memory companies where you can just keep making more margins. And Google's the best example of this because they make so much money from ads. You don't really need a lot more people to keep making more money from your ad ecosystem.
Or you can be like Micron, you could just charge more 'cause of supply and demand.
Correct. Well, which is what Google's Yeah. It's supplying demand. They're just charging more. You don't need more employees. I would actually look at those organizations, even if you take out AI, would you agree they're bloated and they don't need anywhere near the headcount that they have in the first place? Eric's shaking his head yes.
Nodding, nodding, nodding.
Oh, nodding yes. So in those type of companies, I don't think it's an AI thing. I just think those companies are really efficient and, or could be even more efficient and has nothing to do with AI. You just don't need as many people. I was telling him, I'm like, my viewpoint is very different because if you have efficiency gains and I can at least talk to marketing or I can actually speak to engineering, but he is an engineer. I was like, because he's saying I don't need as many engineers. And I'm like, but we're seeing because of efficiencies, companies spend more money hiring engineers than ever before. Yes, some people are getting let go because they can't use the tools, but they need to figure out how to learn these new tools and adapt to the new times. But we're seeing a lot of SMBs hire more engineers because you can now do things you couldn't have done unless you had a million, $2 million budget. And even though each engineer is more efficient, there's a higher need for engineers because of how much more you can do at a much cheaper cost. So we're actually seeing more engineers being needed even though things can be more efficient. And in marketing specifically, you know, because all of us are in marketing, I was like, if you can do more things efficiently, companies are— expecting you to either do more or charge way less. We're not seeing it where companies are like, oh cool, you can do a lot less, or you can do the same amount with a lot less employees. So we can just go and fire a ton of people in our organization. We're not seeing that come to reality. We're seeing companies adapt and expect more in this timeframe. And we're not really seeing budget cuts. We're seeing companies look for more strategy and things that require Human, the human element more, and they expect the same amount of execution still because AI can help with a lot of the execution.
So I used to think that AI was going to take a lot of jobs, but my stance is AI is going to cause a lot of abundance. And sure, you might say, okay, do truck drivers actually want to drive trucks? No, I think they're going to be able to find better jobs, just like nobody wanted to do farming, you know, a long time ago, right? And that's changed. It used to be 98% of people are farmers, and now it's like 1 or 2% maybe, and it's decreasing over time because we've automated a lot. The way I look at it now is AI is going to create a lot of abundance. There's going to be more jobs than ever. More people are going to be happier doing what they're doing. And to your point, we're hiring more engineers. I talked to my CTO. I'm like, we need more engineers. We need more engineers. And so the good thing, guys, by the way, X is great for recruiting engineers. It's been good for us. So we're recruiting more engineers and let's use some examples. This is why let's disprove the whole myth that AI is going to take jobs because that's BS. When you look at radiology, people are like, oh my God, radiology is— that job is dead. Once AI figured out how to handle the image test, but there's more radiologists than ever. There's more job openings than ever. Oh, the ATM came out. Oh, tellers are not going to have jobs anymore. There's more tellers than ever because more banks ended up opening, right? The spreadsheet is going to kill jobs. That created more financial jobs than ever. And if you look at all the jobs today, 60% plus of the jobs that we have today are net new since World War II. Okay, so humans always find a way to create new abundance, new jobs, new— you look at this, by the way, you look at the toilet that you use, the air conditioner you use, the phone that you use, the car, the self-driving car that's outside. Yeah, all these things that you have, net new jobs. Because here's the thing, if we go with the narrative that AI is going to take jobs away, then who's going to pay for all this stuff, right? Correct.
I totally agree with you. It's just like people saying, oh, AI is going to replace all these software companies. Well, these software companies are probably some of the largest users of these LLMs and all their tokens. So who's going to pay for it then?
Yeah.
And I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying, and I think you phrase it really well, in which AI will cause disruption to jobs, but new jobs will also be created. And you and I both feel people will eventually transition into new jobs like they have done historically over time. Yes, there may be some disruption in the short term. They'll learn new things, but net-net, there'll be a bigger demand for these new jobs than the ones that were lost. And you know what? These new jobs will pay much better than a lot of the ones that were lost. So people will have an opportunity to earn more, assuming they're willing to learn and get the education and adapt. And I think that's where the disruption comes because some people will, some people won't, but over time people will have no choice and they'll have to do it.
Yeah. You know, this is more philosophical thing than I want to show you a chart, but one, do we agree human nature doesn't change?
Yeah, I agree.
Okay.
Well, I think human nature doesn't change when someone's really old. When they're young, it's much easier to get the human nature to change.
So I'm hoping with AI, it's going to lift everyone else up to want to create things, because I actually think at the pinnacle, humans are creating stuff, right? Like, I'm very happy creating, like Noah creates as well. When you're creating, you're in a very happy place. I think most people just haven't found their thing to create, and I think this is going to enable it, and most people are going to be a lot happier. That's what I think the net gains are, right? But people are like, oh, You know, I'm showing this chart to Neil right now, this AI bubble. Okay, so this is the generative AI economy revenue. Okay, so you look at the annualized run rate last month times 12, trailing 12-month actual revenue, right? And so— All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or global organizations. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more, and we'll see you on the other side. This actually shows that the AI economy revenue is actually growing over time. And like I said, it's only been 7 months since this stuff really started to take off for broader consumers, and I don't even think it's reached a broader consumer market yet.
What's the line underneath? So the top line, the purple one, is $175 billion. The one below is $110 billion.
Yeah. Banked trailing 12-month revenue. The above is annualized run rate.
Got it.
Yeah.
So, and this is all AI revenue.
Yeah. And this is a 1.6x gap. The spread reflects the growth rate.
Got it.
Yeah. So the growth rate is actually accelerating. That's what this thing is saying. And so like, I believe, I think it takes time for this to go throughout the organization because one company I talked to, 8,000 employees, and I asked him how many people are AI-pilled? He's like, maybe 12. I'm like, really? 12? It's probably more than that. But when we asked one of our mutual friends, has about 1,000 employees, 1,200 or so, He said maybe 40. So this stuff takes time and I think we're, the fact that we're talking about it right now, like you're listening to this, you're probably in the top 1%, but you know, this is going to disseminate through the economy. So I think this is a, it's a, this whole AI is a bubble thing is a nothing burger.
Dude, when I was, months ago we partnered with a company called HighLevel and when we first started talking to them, I think they had around 2,000-ish employees. Now they're around 3,000 employees.
Wow.
Right? It's somewhere around there. They're growing extremely fast.
Where are they based again?
They're global, but their headquarters are in Dallas. And one of the biggest things that's made them grow fast is, yes, they're great at marketing, but it's more so they've leveraged AI to build tech that helps SMBs do more and grow faster, like voice AI. So then that way an SMB, like a home service business, doesn't have to follow up with every single lead and AI can just do it for them, right? And I was using this example on the past podcast with Monique because when people talk about AI job displacement, if you're using AI correctly, you're offering a better product or service to your customers, and that's causing more demand. That causes more growth in your organization. As you have more growth in your organization to keep up with the demand, you end up having to hire more people, even when you create efficiencies with AI, because You can do so many more things that you couldn't have done before. And I use that as an example because it's like, dude, you're talking in like maybe a 6-month span or somewhere around there. My numbers are a little bit off, but 2,000 to around 3,000 employees, right? It wasn't maybe as big of a jump, but it was close, like massive growth just because adding in AI and creating technology that helps businesses do better. And I believe that's what most businesses are going to experience if they use the technology right. But I think the biggest problem that we're seeing when people talk about AI and integrating with their organization, they try to do basic stuff, and I look at that as like table stakes. They're not trying to really— forget creating efficiencies for their employees. They're not trying to figure out how to use the technology to make their product or service better.
Yeah.
I look at it as most people, especially in marketing, it's always about Oh, how do we just get more done? Well, it's not about how do you get more done with the same amount of time? It's how do you do better new stuff that you weren't able to do before that helps you really get a leg up on the competition when it comes to your marketing?
Yep. By the way, it just clicked to me. You mentioned Search Atlas. This guy and I are trauma bonded because we had one person that stole from us. This one person that left my company, went to his, remember? Stole clients, stole employees. Went to his company, did the same thing, and he was actually the one that discovered it all. So he was the one that discovered that this person was doing the same to his company, Search Atlas.
Search Atlas was doing it to his company?
This person was doing it to Search Atlas's company.
Oh, they were stealing their advice.
So they did it to me, then they went over there, and then they did this, they tried to do the same thing, but then they caught them. And then he came back to me and then showed me all this stuff, and then he didn't want to get in trouble. So yeah.
Well, I'm confused on this. Let's back up here. So you had an employee leave?
She was, we put her on leave because her family member was sick and we said, hey, we'll put you on paid leave. Like, go take care of your family. We love you. We got you, right? During that time, she was actually taking all of our leads. She had a VA in our channel taking all of our leads, right? And then she picked off a couple of employees and then dragged it over to that.
So her mom wasn't really sick or her family wasn't sick?
A family member was sick. That was a real thing, but—
Wait, wait, she was starting another business? Oh, I know who you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She started working at that company while she was still with me, took on a COO job, right? And then started doing the same thing at his company too. The only thing is, and then you can see in the channel that a couple of ex-employees were actually there. And then at the same time she was working at this new company, Search Atlas, she started to do the same thing for, she started something on the side.
And she was doing, she was working at Search Atlas while she was on leave for you?
Yeah.
That's messed up.
Yeah. Yeah.
So she's getting paid by you saying she's leave and she needs to take care of family stuff, which was very nice and generous. And I think that's the right thing you did to pay her to go handle her family stuff. And instead of focusing on family, she took another job, double dipped, and then at the same time had a VA in your Slack channels and stuff trying to take your leads and create her own company.
She took leads, tried to take, tried to steal a client, took a couple of employees as well, and then did the same thing to Search Atlas. So then what I did— Oh, she was doing to both companies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then when I hung out with, I met Monique, you said? I met him at HubSpot Inbound a few years later, and then him and his wife, and we're just like talking about how we're trauma bonded. So you just brought back all these memories.
Oh.
Yeah, so small world.
Anyway. Oh, so the same girl was taking clients from both of you at the same time. That's so screwed up. And then taking paychecks from both of you and creating her own company with all the leads.
And let me give a one lesson for everyone on this. So yes, that happened, but you might be thinking, okay, destroy this person. And That's a human, I think, reaction. But the right move is actually move on. Move on and just get on with your business because running your business is already hard enough. And so we just kind of gave like a slap on the wrist and we moved on because some of my friends were like, no, you must absolutely destroy her. I was like, no. But then that would, like 50% of my attention going to that means 50% less on my business. Yeah.
I know one person who really likes destroying people when they screw him over. He invested in a company in China, blew up really well.
Blew up well?
Like grew really fast.
Oh, grew well, grew well. Okay.
Worth a ton of money. They tried to screw him over on his equity and his investment. He's US-based. So then he created a competing company across the street and gave it away for, did similar things for pennies on the dollar. Lost money there. He did it to make a point and screw the other person over and screw the other company over. And that company went from being worth hundreds of millions of dollars to literally pretty much nothing. And he himself lost money on both ends. My guess is he lost over $100 million from his shares. The guy's a multi, multi, multi-billionaire. So—
Oh yeah.
He's just like making things up. But I was like, Why don't you just focus on your company? Come on, dude. You know? And he's like, no, you can't let people do this. I'm like, just focus on your company. And him and I were talking and he's just like, no, I'm not going to let people do this to me. But I don't know. This is just the way he is. And he also, I don't know how much he actually really works. I think he's, you know, at the end of his life cycle as an entrepreneur and has been for like 15, 20 years.
Yeah. So maybe it was just entertainment.
It could be entertainment, but that's expensive entertainment. Just didn't care.
But also that $100 is not, you know, there's, if he's worth billions and billions, it's still, it's still a little bit, but it's, you know.
When I say he's worth billions and billions, he can buy a sports team and if it doesn't do well, he can buy another sports team.
So that $100 is really not a lot compared to— Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
When you can buy 2 sports teams, you really have a lot of money.
Anyway, that's it for today, guys, and we'll see you tomorrow.
