The AI generation and what they really do: Gen Z workers reveal what their jobs actually involve - and why their six-figure salaries aren't worth it

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now one of the fastest-growing industries on Earth, with investors ploughing in over £432.8billion ($580billion) during the last year alone.That spending boom has also driven an equally frantic hiring rush, with big tech firms and startups paying ludicrous sums to snap up the brightest minds.Earlier this month, it was revealed that OpenAI's London staff each received £2,318,181 ($3,106,107) on average last year, putting them on par with Premier League footballers.But who exactly are the AI generation, and what do their high-paid jobs actually involve?Workforce data shows that the average worker starting in the wild world of AI is, for the most part, young, educated and male.Research conducted by LinkedIn found that Gen Z made up two-thirds of all new hires for 'AI Engineer' roles in the US, while only a quarter of new hires in AI roles were women.However, despite the sky-high salaries and chance to be at the cutting edge of innovation, some young AI workers warn that living the dream isn't all it's cracked up to be.To find out more, the Daily Mail has interviewed Gen Z AI innovators from around the world to find out what their lives are really like. James He, 25, co-founded Artificial Societies in 2024. He says that working in a startup is not as 'glamorous' as many people might expect James He, 25, co-founder of Artificial SocietiesIn 2024, James He founded Artificial Societies, a company that models human societies to help decision-makers simulate focus groups and surveys.When the company had just started, Mr He said that he and his co-founders would do 'everything', meeting with potential customers during the day and building prototypes on his laptop at night.However, Artificial Societies' growth has been explosive, going from four employees 'making zero' to a team of 12 making 'a few million dollars a year'.'Speed is the only weapon a startup has to survive. Someone once told me that it's like you're falling from 10,000 feet and you're trying to assemble a plane as you fall,' says Mr He.'We don't have red tape, so we can move a lot faster, and we have an infinite budget to do that because, if I run out of money, I will just raise more.'Today, Mr He says his days are typically filled with 'emails about meetings and meetings about emails'.However, he warns that the lifestyle of a high-flying AI co-founder is not for the faint of heart. Research conducted by LinkedIn shows that the average AI worker is predominantly male, with men making up about three quarters of all AI engineers He says: 'It's not glamorous. You have so many things that you are thinking about. I have a team who commutes in, who takes a salary, who has a life, and I have my board to report to. I have customers to take care of.''I would not recommend this life to everyone. You should only do it if you have something that you really want to see in the world, and anyone who goes into this life for the glamour will be devoured by capital.'Likewise, despite the hype, the salary might be disappointing for anyone dreaming of becoming an overnight millionaire.Mr He says he paid himself £50,000 ($66,994) for the first few years and has recently been given a pay rise by the board to £80,000 (£107,191).On the other hand, Artificial Society's latest job listings are offering up to £180,000 ($241,180).Explaining the massive difference between his pay and that of his employees, Mr He says: 'As a founder there's no incentive to leave, but there are incentives for my best researchers to leave.'Saaras Mehan, 26, co-founder and CTO of Jack & Jill Saarnas Mehan, 26, co-founded the AI recruitment company Jack & Jill last year. He says AI has changed how coders work, spending more time managing bots rather than writing codeMr Mehan is no stranger to running a business, having set up his first company shipping electronic components from China at 12 years old.'It's hard as a 12-year-old because you can't really get on calls with people,' Mr Mehan recalls.Thankfully, now 26 and the co-founder of the AI recruitment company Jack & Jill, Mr Mehan no longer faces that particular problem.Launched in March 2025 by Mr Mehan and his co-founder Matt Wilson, Jack & Jill operates two AI agents that sit on opposite sides of the hiring process, 'Jack' working on behalf of hopeful applicants and 'Jill' helping hiring companies.And the formula has proven to be a hit, with the company raising £29.85million ($40million) in Series A funding.Mr Mehan says that his days are generally split between interviewing potential new hires, meeting with customers on the company side and 'building product' with the engineering team.However, what that work actually involves might look quite unfamiliar to anyone outside the AI bubble.'Walking into our office, the first thing you notice is that there's a lot of quiet talking, and it's using speech-to-text models to talk out loud and basically manage a bunch of [AI] agents,' says Mr Mehan. The explosive growth of the AI industry has been a boon to tech-savy Gen Z, who make up the majority of new hires'Almost every conversation that happens in our offices is recorded. 'If two people are having a discussion, they'll often record those conversations live and, whilst those conversations are happening, agents will be building out prototypes and visualisations of how the feature ideas could work.'Mr Mehan says that a lot of his time is now spent essentially managing swarms of AI bots that take care of everything from making presentation slides to writing code.However, that does not mean there's any room for slacking off; in fact, these powerful AI tools have increased the need to work hard and move fast.Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mr Mehan said his day started at 8.00am and his last scheduled meeting for the day was at 9.30pm that evening but added that he would probably stay later.Likewise, although Jack & Jill recently caused a stir by announcing it would set the minimum salary for its new engineers at £360,000 ($482,360), Mr Mehan says he pays himself half that sum.He says: 'A lot of hype revolves around salaries, and it's easy to lose sight of why we're doing this in the first place, but I think a lot of people are very mission-driven in this industry.'Sebastian Hjarne, 24, founder and CEO of Talentium Sebastian Hjarne, 24, founded his first company at 19 and says that the industry has completely changed thanks to AI While discussions about sky-high salaries dominate the headlines, pay cheques are not something that bothers Sebastian Hjarne.Having already founded and sold two companies, the youngest entrepreneur on Forbes' latest 30 Under 30 AI list can happily say 'it's not about the salary'.However, that does not mean he spends his days taking things easy.Mr Hjarne told the Daily Mail: 'I wake up pretty early and I directly turn to my phone and start to read what I have missed.'The real workday then begins in earnest by meeting with his developers, checking in on deadlines, and assigning the day's priorities.Like the bosses of most growing companies, his days are then split between meeting with clients and customers, managing his staff, and getting hands-on with the coding.However, although he is just 24, Mr Hjarne says that the AI boom has already changed so much about how his business operates.In particular, the rise of AI-powered code-writing tools has revolutionised the pace at which startups can go from an idea to a finished product. OpenAI generated headlines after it was revealed that its engineers received £2,318,181 ($3,106,107) on average last year, but the average AI worker salary is closer to £180,000 ($241,180)He says: 'Today I can sit with my Claude and vibe-code an entire website, an entire product, map things out and start to sell it.'It's a completely different market because everything used to take much longer and now it can go very fast.'On the flip side, Mr Hjarne says that this has created an enormous amount of pressure on young AI workers to work relentlessly to stay ahead of the competition.He says: 'I wouldn't recommend anyone to do it, to be honest. You need to be a certain type of person, and a lot of people are romanticising it in a way that isn't right.'I see so many people pushing really hard, working 17, 18 hours a day because, in my world, it's actually seen as a cool thing. But that's not something you can do for long.'Pritesh Kiri, 26, Developer Relations Engineer at Harness Pritesh Kiri, 26, is a Developer Relations Engineer for Harness, a so-called 'code factory' that uses AI to help their clients write and deliver software, but his role has very little to do with writing code Mr Kiri works for the Bangalore office of Harness, a so-called 'code factory' that uses AI to help their clients write and deliver software.However, his role as a Developer Relations Engineer has very little to do with actually writing code.A large part of his role involves making video tutorials for Harness's users, teaching them how to use the tool.But Mr Kiri says the most interesting part of his role involves looking after the community of developers and hosting meetups at the company's office.He says: 'We partner with different companies, get four or five different speakers talking about technology, then we get hundreds of people joining us to share knowledge and network.'I also go to different conferences and different meetups to deliver talks and appear on panels.'While he isn't travelling, Mr Kiri says most of his days are spent writing and shooting tutorial videos, planning events, and researching content for his talks.But although he isn't directly working on AI, Mr Kiri says he 'cannot imagine working without it for a minute'.Like many other AI workers, he uses a network of automated bots that keep track of his schedule, edit his messages, and handle mundane work like booking travel tickets.'Every day the amount of effort that I use is being reduced,' he explains.Although as a worker in India, Mr Kiri admits that his own pay is likely lower than his American colleagues, who could command up to $285,000 (£212,745) according to a job listing on LinkedIn.However, unlike some young workers in AI, he has no reservations about recommending this career path to anyone interested in technology.He says: 'You get to learn a lot and be part of this revolution. The technology is emerging very fast, and you should be grateful to be part of it.'Carter Church, 27, Staff AI Engineer at SentinelOne Carter Church, 27, works as a Staff AI Engineer at SentinelOne. He says that AI tools mean his job is more about understanding what makes code good than writing code himselfAlthough Carter Church's title is an AI engineer, his job actually involves combining two different areas of tech.He says: 'I've been at SentinelOne for about five years, but I actually started my career on the cybersecurity side.'The combination of those areas gave rise to two new areas that are attracting a lot of attention in the tech world: AI for security, and security for AI.'Right now I focus on AI security, which really involves being a security practitioner, knowing what their workflow looks like, and building technologies that can take something off their plate,' he said. However, once again, the idea that the AI generation spends all day typing out lines of code couldn't be further from the truth.'I think there's a lot of debate on how much sitting behind the computer and manually writing code that many folks are doing anymore,' says Mr Church.He explains that the 'pipeline has shifted', which means he spends more time trying to figure out what makes good code rather than actually writing it himself.'It's a lot of engaging with experts in the field who are experts in AI, but not necessarily all experts in security,' Mr Carter says.'The effort has shifted from the raw writing of code to sitting down and being an architect for these systems.'Likewise, the AI engineer says that he now spends more time checking and verifying code written by agents than manually writing code himself.That trend has recently sparked a lot of worry among software engineers, whose jobs are suddenly being threatened by the very AI models they helped to create.However, Mr Carter believes that there has never been a better time to pursue a career in AI.He says: 'What could you imagine the day in the life of an AI engineer is like? Well, for $200 at a major lab, you can find out.'Never before has there been a time when, for a small amount of cash, you can go and have access to the frontier of these things.'HALF OF CURRENT JOBS WILL BE LOST TO AI WITHIN 15 YEARS Kai-Fu Lee, the author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com the world of employments was facing a crisis 'akin to that faced by farmers during the industrial revolution.'Half of current jobs will be taken over by AI within 15 years, one of China's leading AI experts has warned.Kai-Fu Lee, the author of bestselling book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com the world of employments was facing a crisis 'akin to that faced by farmers during the industrial revolution.''People aren't really fully aware of the effect AI will have on their jobs,' he said.Lee, who is a VC in China and once headed up Google in the region, has over 30 years of experience in AI.He believes it is imperative to 'warn people there is displacement coming, and to tell them how they can start retraining.'Luckily, he said all is not lost for humanity. 'AI is powerful and adaptable, but it can't do everything that humans do.' Lee believe AI cannot create, conceptualize, or do complex strategic planning, or undertake complex work that requires precise hand-eye coordination.He also says it is poor at dealing with unknown and unstructured spaces.Crucially, he says AI cannot interact with humans 'exactly like humans', with empathy, human-human connection, and compassion.