Investors expect AI to come to work in 2026

Concerns about how artificial intelligence will impact workers continue to rise in parallel with the pace of progress and new products promising automation and efficiency.

Evidence suggests that the fear is justified.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November The study found an estimated 11.7% of jobs It can actually be automated using artificial intelligence. Surveys have shown Employers are already cutting entry-level jobs Because of technology. Companies are also already referring to Artificial intelligence as a reason for layoffs.

As companies embrace AI more seriously, some may take a closer look at how many employees they really need.

In a recent TechCrunch survey, several enterprise venture capitalists said that AI will have a major impact on the enterprise workforce in 2026. This was especially interesting because the survey did not ask about it specifically.

Eric Pan, co-founder and general partner at Hustle Fund, expects to see employment impacts in 2026. But he’s not sure exactly what that will look like.

“I want to see what roles that were known for more repetition have become automated, or even more complex roles with more logic have become more automated,” Bahn said. “Will this lead to more layoffs? Will there be higher productivity? Or will AI just enhance the current labor market to become more productive in the future? This all seems unanswerable, but it looks like something big will happen in 2026.”

Mariel Evans, founder and managing partner at Exceptional Capital, predicts that companies looking to increase spending on AI will pull money from their labor and hiring pool.

“I think on the flip side of seeing a gradual increase in AI budgets, we will see more human labor cuts and layoffs will continue to strongly impact employment in the United States,” Evans said.

Rajeev Dham, managing director of Sapphire, agreed that 2026 budgets will start shifting resources from labor to AI. Jason Mendel, an investor at Battery Ventures, added that AI will begin to move beyond just being a tool to make existing workers more efficient in 2026.

“2026 will be the year of agents as software expands from making humans more productive to automating work itself, creating value that displaces human labor in some areas,” Mendel said.

Even if companies don’t shift business budgets toward AI projects, they’ll likely still say AI is the reason for layoffs or lower labor costs anyway, said Antonia Dean, a partner at Black Operator Ventures.

“The complexity here is that many companies, despite how prepared or unwilling they are to use AI solutions successfully, will say they are increasing their investments in AI to explain why they are reducing spending in other areas or reducing their workforce,” Dean said. “In fact, AI will become a scapegoat for executives looking to cover up past mistakes.”

Many AI companies argue that their technology is not eliminating jobs, but rather helping shift workers to “deep work” or to higher-skilled jobs, while AI merely automates repetitive “busy work.”

But not everyone buys this argument, and people worry that their jobs will become automated. According to venture capitalists investing in this space, these concerns do not appear to dissipate in 2026.