As AI makes it harder to land a job, OpenAI is building a platform to help you get one

AI’s labor market shift is hitting Gen Z hard

Jessica Coacci is a reporting fellow at Fortune where she covers success. Prior to joining Fortune, she worked as a producer at CNN and CNBC.

As job-seekers struggle to find a career that AI isn’t actively replacing, OpenAI is rolling out an AI-powered jobs platform that aligns employers with candidates who have AI skills. 

The “OpenAI Jobs Platform” will use AI to assist qualified candidates to match with companies and help alleviate the technology’s job disruption that’s been caused in part

The blog post doesn’t confirm when the new platform will launch but a spokesperson told TechCrunch that it could be ready mid-2026.

“Jobs will look different, companies will have to adapt, and all of us—from shift workers to CEOs—will have to learn how to work in new ways,” OpenAI CEO of applications Fidji Simo wrote in a blog post released Thursday. 

In addition to developing a LinkedIn rival, OpenAI is launching a new certification program to help workers build “AI fluency” and use AI better in their 9-to-5s. As part of that program, it’s partnering with corporate giants like Walmart and John Deere to help workers pivot.

“At OpenAI, we can’t eliminate that disruption,” Simo added. “But what we can do is help more people become fluent in AI and connect them with companies that need their skills, to give people more economic opportunities.” 

OpenAI’s mission to job seekers is becoming urgent for recent graduates as they face an increasingly stark reality: AI is replacing the junior roles they need to kickstart their careers. Early-career workers aged 22 to 25 in jobs most exposed to AI automation, such as software development and customer service, have seen steep relative declines in employment, according to findings in a paper from Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab. 

At the same time, CEOs have admitted they are cutting jobs en masse and replacing them with AI agents. Marc Benioff said Salesforce has cut about 4,000 customer service roles, and just “needs less heads” now that AI agents can handle over a million consumer conversations. 

“I was able to rebalance my headcount on my support,” Marc Benioff, CEO of the $248 billion computer software company, recently revealed on the podcast The Logan Bartlett Show. “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads.

Other tech giants in Silicon Valley have similarly shrunk their workforce because of AI. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC this year that his company has shrunk its workforce

“The truth is, the company has shrunk from about 5,000 to now almost 3,000 employees,” he said to CNBC’s Power Lunch in May.

On the flip side, other members of OpenAI’s C-Suite have expressed optimism toward Gen Z adapting AI in the workforce. 

Its CEO, Sam Altman, said that for younger people entering the job market it’s actually “the most exciting time to be starting out one’s career, maybe ever.”  

“I think that [a] 25-year-old in Mumbai can probably do more than any previous 25-year-old in history could,” Altman said on an episode of the People