We’ve all seen the headlines about artificial intelligence threatening entry-level jobs and the impact it’s having on recent graduates. So this week, I spoke with tech executive Clara Shih, who is using her experience as a leader in the AI space to help young people build careers using the technology, rather than risk being replaced by it.

Below is a snippet of my profile on Shih, a former Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, who is on a mission to ensure that Gen Z isn’t left behind by the changes in the job market:

In August 2025, Clara Shih was working as the Head of Business AI at Meta when she and her team built an artificial intelligence agent for businesses that answered customers’ questions, remembered their preferences, and even offered product discounts to seal a sale. The tool, Shih says, was rapidly adopted by business owners who found it helped keep consumers engaged and streamlined their sales process.

“It was everything you would want when you’re a builder in technology,” recalls Shih, now 44, who was honored on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2012 as cofounder and CEO of the client engagement platform Hearsay Systems. She became CEO of Salesforce AI in 2023, before moving to Meta the next year. (Hearsay was acquired by the digital platform Yext in 2024.)

But the feedback from entrepreneurs using Meta’s new tool also opened Shih’s eyes to the real—and potentially negative—impact AI could have. “The feedback we got from the businesses using our software was that they no longer needed their staff,” she says. “We didn’t know whether we should cry or celebrate because we’ve been wanting it for so long and yet when we achieved our goal, we started to realize what........

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