A new report is complicating the narrative that AI is coming for everyone’s job. Companies that spend heavily on AI are actually growing headcount faster than their peers — even in entry-level roles that many feared were doomed.
The report, from Ramp and Revelio Labs, tracked enterprise AI spending and workforce records across nearly 22,000 companies. It found that “high-intensity adopters” — firms spending an average of $30 per employee per month on AI in the first three months — saw headcount increase by 10.2%. Entry-level headcount at those companies rose by 12%.
Headcount grew across engineering, sales, administration, customer service, finance, marketing, and scientist roles. The strongest growth was in the information sector, covering software, internet, media, and tech-adjacent firms.
But there is a catch. The data skews heavily toward tech-forward, often VC-backed knowledge-work firms that might be growing anyway. The authors admit the paper does not show that AI universally creates jobs — just that it counters claims of broad job losses.
The picture is not entirely rosy. Goldman Sachs research found AI has already erased about 16,000 net jobs per month over the past year, with Gen Z and entry-level workers bearing the brunt. The key difference seems to be sustained investment versus experimentation. Companies that bought subscriptions and ran pilots without committing further did not see headcount gains.
What emerges is a widening gap between firms with the resources to turn AI adoption into real business gains and those stuck running pilots. For software and tech firms, AI can make core output cheaper and faster — writing code, debugging, building tools — which raises the return to expanding the whole firm, not just cutting staff.
