Published Date : 16/08/2025
Las Vegas — The president of Cisco rejects the doomsday warnings from some tech leaders that artificial intelligence will make entry-level jobs vanish.
The president of Cisco, Jeetu Patel, who’s also the chief product officer at AI infrastructure company Cisco, strongly believes that humans will not become obsolete due to AI. “I just refuse to believe that humans are going to be obsolete. It just seems like it’s an absurd concept,” Patel told CNN.
While Patel acknowledged there will be “growing pains where people will get disrupted,” he strongly pushed back on Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s comments, which suggest that AI will spike unemployment to as high as 20% and eliminate half of all white-collar entry-level jobs.
He’s one of several tech leaders that have pushed back on Amodei’s narrative; others have said AI is likely to change jobs by requiring workers to adopt new skills rather than wiping out jobs completely. Still, his comments come amid a plunge in entry-level hiring and as tech giants are increasingly using AI in the workplace, raising questions about the future of work.
“Dario is a friend. We are investors in Anthropic. I have a ton of respect for what he’s done. In this area though, I have a slightly different opinion on a couple of different dimensions,” Patel said Wednesday at Ai4, an AI conference in Las Vegas. “I reject the notion that humans are going to be obsolete in like five years, that we’re not going to have anything to do and we’re going to be sitting on the beach… It doesn’t make any sense.”
In particular, Patel said he has a “huge concern” with Amodei’s line of thinking that AI could wipe out entry-level jobs because companies benefit from adding younger workers who often better understand new technologies.
“If you just say, ‘I’m going to eradicate all entry-level jobs,’ that’s the stupidest thing a company can do in the long term because what you’ve done is you’ve actually taken away the injection of new perspective,” the Cisco exec said.
Patel argued that for some jobs, having significant experience can be a “massive liability.” For instance, he said people often hold assumptions about things that may not have worked five years ago, but do now. That’s why Patel said he spends “an enormous amount of time” with younger employees and interns.
“I learn a lot from people who’ve just gotten out of college because they have a fresh and unique perspective. And that perspective coupled with (my) experience makes magic happen,” Patel said. “It would be a really bad strategy to not have early in career people and entry level people injected in your workplace.”
However, some economists say there are early signs suggesting AI may already be depressing entry-level jobs. Even though the overall job market has been mostly healthy, the Class of 2025 faces the worst job market for new college graduates in years.
For the first time since tracking started in 1980, the unemployment rate for recent graduates (those 22 to 27 years old with at least a bachelor’s degree) is higher than the national unemployment rate, according to Oxford Economics. Entry-level hiring has tumbled by 23% between March 2020 and May 2025, outpacing the 18% decline in overall hiring over that span, according to data from LinkedIn.
This is happening for a variety of reasons, some of them unrelated to AI. But AI does seem to be playing a role, some economists say. For instance, Oxford Economics noted that employment in two industries vulnerable to AI disruption — computer science and mathematics — has dropped by 8% since 2022 for recent graduates. By comparison, employment has little changed in those industries for older workers.
“AI is definitely displacing some of these lower-level jobs,” Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics, told CNN in June.
Q: What is Jeetu Patel's position on AI and entry-level jobs?
A: Jeetu Patel, president of Cisco, believes that AI will not make humans obsolete and that eliminating entry-level jobs is a bad strategy for companies.
Q: What does Dario Amodei predict about AI and unemployment?
A: Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicts that AI could spike unemployment to as high as 20% and eliminate half of all white-collar entry-level jobs.
Q: Why does Patel think eliminating entry-level jobs is a bad idea?
A: Patel believes that younger employees bring fresh perspectives and new ideas, which are crucial for innovation and growth in companies.
Q: What are some signs that AI is affecting entry-level jobs?
A: Economists note that entry-level hiring has declined, and the unemployment rate for recent graduates is higher than the national average, particularly in industries vulnerable to AI disruption.
Q: What is the current job market like for new college graduates?
A: The job market for new college graduates is the worst it has been in years, with the unemployment rate for recent graduates higher than the national average.