• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, September 17, 2025

The digital natives are old news.  We are witnessing the birth of an entirely new generation of AI natives, and it is fascinating to see how they will respond to the world around them.

First, the good news.

This AI-native generation will be efficient. They will have access to even more information than we do, and in a more synthesized way that poses the answers to questions. They can engage with AI in a conversational manner, asking questions and seeking a deeper layer of insight than we did with our archaic “search and click” motion of uncovering insights. They will be (hopefully) trained to employ critical thinking and ask the right kinds of questions in order to come to the best conclusions.

More good news: they will be freed up from mindless tasks that are simply executed through repetitive motions and able to be more creative and strategic. And if we shift the paradigm a bit, it can be an incredibly effective teaching tool that helps students understand the answers and better grasp the solutions.

Now for some of the bad news. 

The most difficult thing for this generation is that they must be forced to be cynical. Every piece of information given to them on the web is suspect. Videos can be deepfakes. The internet, and specifically social media, is simply not to be trusted beyond cat videos that make you laugh. And maybe, just maybe, this cynicism will result in the demise of social media as it is now. Maybe social media can go back to being the cat videos and no longer be the source of news for so much of the country. 

Also on the bad news front, although not really bad as much as it is uncomfortable, is that there will be a host of new jobs for this generation none of us are familiar with – therefore we can’t necessarily guide or train this cohort.

Advertising, media and marketing are changing. Medicine is changing.  Some of the fundamentals will still apply, but the ability to use AI will change how these jobs are executed every day, and we may not know what that new job will look like. Couple that with the new kinds of engineering jobs that are being created – and disrupted – by AI, and it is a very uncertain future.

Yet when someone finds a job they like in this new world, they will keep it. I don’t think this generation of AI natives will hop around as much as we all have over the last 20 years. The job market will be tighter, and loyalty to someone’s current company may become more important. 

The AI-native generation has its work cut out for it. But they also have an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the way we work. I hope they see it as an opportunity and not a threat. Change is great if you have the right attitude toward it.