What does “AI native” even mean?

This week, news reports revealed that Meta would be cutting hundreds of jobs in its AI division. The layoffs will impact employees who work on AI products, research, and infrastructure. They come after Meta went on a hiring spree to shore up its AI efforts.

But despite the job cuts, Meta’s chief AI officer told the Wall Street Journal that the company would, however, continue hiring “AI native” talent—a term that seems to have quietly slipped into the corporate lexicon amid the AI arms race.

For the last decade, the term “digital native” has been circulating to describe Gen Z, as many of them don’t know life without the internet. The cohort following them, Generation Alpha, is already being called “generation AI.” But surely that’s not what Meta means by “AI native,” given the oldest in that group is only around 15 years old. (Meta did not respond to a request for comment.)

So what exactly does “AI native” mean?

“I’ve noticed that popping up more and more,” says JR Keller, a professor of human resource studies at Cornell University’s ILR School. “My sense is what these companies mean when they talk about this are workers who integrate AI into every facet of their lives,” Keller says.

“It’s almost like each one of these workers has a little invisible AI companion with them at all times.”

Even in a tough job market, many companies are willing to pay top dollar for young workers who are deeply familiar with AI—unlike senior employees who may need to be cajoled into adopting it.

According to Keller, these workers practically speak a different language when it comes to their relationship with AI. “The way that I think of AI is: When are particular times when it would be useful?” he says. “When should I use ChatGPT? When should I allow Copilot to look at my emails? Or when should I turn Grammarly on? But it is always on with AI native people.”

Jeffrey Bussgang, a general partner at the venture capital firm Flybridge, has said he frequently uses the term AI native to describe people who are “wildly adept at using a wide range of modern AI tools,” which in term enables to be far more productive than their peers. “AI-native companies are made up of a collection of AI-native employees who infuse AI into everything they do—every function, every process, and every role,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

So if you’re seeing the term “AI native” circulate more and more in the discourse, it’s likely just referring to workers who look at everything through an AI lens first and foremost. And it’s not just AI startups or big tech companies like Meta who are seeking out “AI native” talent.

For traditional employers who are struggling to adopt AI or use it effectively, bringing on workers with AI experience can be invaluable. And while they’re not as young as Gen Alpha, of course, they do tend to be the younger people in the workforce. Pew data released in June found that 58% of people ages 18 to 29 have used ChatGPT, the highest share of any age group.

“The concept of the ‘AI native’ is increasingly real,” former Deloitte Consulting CEO Dan Helfrich said recently. “Leading organizations are empowering and unleashing AI natives—employees who, by definition, are adept with AI but are typically among companies’ less experienced and less tenured employees.”

Keller says it’s just a matter of time before more workers embrace the term to better position themselves while job hunting.

“As you see companies use this, many people are going to start including that terminology in their LinkedIn profile, [like] ‘I’m an AI native programmer,'” he says. ‘Because they know then they’re going to pop up to the top of the search results.”

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