Deel's CEO predicts that new graduates, being "AI native," will master AI tools so effectively they'll become more productive than experienced workers reluctant to adapt. This generation will leverage AI as a superpower, fundamentally changing the value of experience versus tool proficiency.

New research shows ~30% of American teens use AI chatbots daily, compared to only 10% of working adults. This creates an impending skills gap, with an AI-native generation poised to enter a workforce where the majority of incumbents have dramatically less experience with the technology.

A key to OpenAI's innovation is hiring young talent who grew up thinking natively about AI. These individuals "hold the model weights in their brains," enabling creative breakthroughs. The team behind the video model Sora, for instance, has a median age in the low twenties.

Short-term, AI amplifies senior engineers who can validate its output. Long-term, as AI tools improve and coding becomes a commodity, the advantage will shift. Junior developers who are native to AI tooling and don't have to "unlearn" old habits will become highly valuable, especially given their lower cost.

AI tools are so novel they neutralize the advantage of long-term experience. A junior designer who is curious and quick to adopt AI workflows can outperform a veteran who is slower to adapt, creating a major career reset based on agency, not tenure.

Disruptive AI tools empower junior employees to skip ahead, becoming fully functioning analysts who can 10x their output. This places mid-career professionals who are slower to adopt the new technology at a significant disadvantage, mirroring past tech shifts.

Contrary to the focus on professional use cases, OpenAI's largest study shows that 46% of messages from adult consumer users are from the 18-25 age group. This indicates the emergence of an "AI native" generation whose approach to work and education will be fundamentally different.

Gokul is a huge fan of the trend toward very young founders, noting he's invested in more dropouts recently than in the past 15 years. He believes they are "AI maxing"—natively adopting AI tools to live and breathe differently, giving them an operational edge.

Casado, a lifelong developer, states he never would have guessed AI would become so proficient at coding. He identifies it as the single area where AI has surprised him most, suggesting a multi-trillion dollar market opportunity.