‘AI not likely to replace you, but…’: Jensen Huang assures fresh grads that this is the best time to start a career

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reassured fresh graduates on Sunday that now is the ideal time to enter the workforce, despite Artificial Intelligence (AI) disruptions and a looming job market slowdown.

Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University's 2026 Commencement, Huang said that there's no better time to "begin your life's work," adding that AI will be a net positive for humanity, including for those newly starting their careers.

“Now it's your time to realize your dreams, and the timing could not be more perfect,” he said.

The tech mogul graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in electrical engineering in 1984. The 61-year-old Nvidia CEO later earned a master's in electrical engineering from Stanford.

Jensen Huang, with an estimated net worth of nearly $186 billion, launched Nvidia in 1993, right around the time when the internet revolution was taking off.

‘AI not likely to replace you, but…’

Jensen Huang told the new grads at Carnegie Mellon that AI was closing the “technology divide,” allowing anyone to build something useful. According to him, this means young people would have many new opportunities in the coming years.

Acknowledging anxieties about the job market, the Nvidia CEO said, “AI is not likely to replace you, but someone using AI better than you might.”

AI leaders should be more ‘mindful’

This isn't the first time Huang has countered AI-induced job market predictions.

After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, and Elon Musk bluntly stated that humanity faces a "20% chance of annihilation," Nvidia CEO said AI leaders should be more "mindful" of how they talk about the technology.

In a recent podcast, the tech mogul said, "These kinds of comments are not helpful."

“They're made by people who are like me — CEOs. Somehow, because they became CEOs, you adopt a God complex and, before you know it, you know everything,” Huang said. “I think we have to be careful and really ground ourselves to talking about the facts.”

Americans ‘more concerned than excited’ about AI — Study

Public anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence has reached a tipping point. A Pew Research Center study revealed that roughly half of Americans are “more concerned than excited” about AI's growing footprint in their daily lives.

This apprehension is moving from theory to action, with communities nationwide actively blocking the construction of the massive data centers required to power AI tools like chatbots.

AI's effect on job market

Companies like Cloudflare and Snapchat recently cited AI as they laid off thousands of employees. They, along with at least a dozen major corporations, explicitly attributed this year's layoffs to AI-driven efficiency gains.

Furthermore, the technology is compounding friction for job seekers by dragging out interview processes and freezing out entry-level talent, driving the unemployment rate for recent graduates to a four-year high in early 2026, according to Business Insider report.