An update on my previous blog titled: Hey That’s My Job! 

From Experiential Boom to AI Isolation 

Prior to COVID-19, it was all about the experiential—travel, restaurants, live shows. The shutdown forced us to turn inward, but this proved temporary. After COVID, experiences returned with a vengeance as stimulus-flush consumers sought human interaction once again. This behavior continued far longer than most of us expected, well outliving the half-life of consumers’ copious, pent-up resources. 

Restaurant, hotel, airline, cruise and concert stocks—once given up for dead—skyrocketed higher due to seemingly insatiable demand. I thought the enthusiasm was overdone. How many times could you eat at Olive Garden before tiring of the experience? For me, you could count it on one hand. 

That experiential surge was probably fueled in part by the post-COVID hiring boom. Remember the stories of employees job-switching at the drop of a hat and getting higher pay packages each time? Many thought power had shifted to workers and this shift would be sustainable. Prices were rising, but wages were rising faster. Employers who hired aggressively were hoarding workers, reluctant to let them go given the investment in time and money expended in a more competitive market for talent. 

Enter AI, and all this seems to be changing. 

The Data Confirms the Shift 

Last year, I wrote about this coming inflection in “Hey, That’s My Job!” The thesis was straightforward: companies over-hired post-COVID, and the “moment in the sun” for workers would pass as companies normalized their workforces. 

The data now confirms it. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. employers announced 696,309 job cuts in just the first five months of 2025—an 80% jump from last year.1 The tech sector alone has seen over 130,000 workers lose their jobs in 2025—574 people every single day.2 Amazon cut 14,000 corporate jobs. UPS eliminated 48,000 positions. Intel is shedding 24,000 people. 

Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, potentially spiking unemployment to 10-20%.3 Salesforce’s Marc Benioff claimed AI is already doing 50% of his company’s workload. Klarna has cut its workforce by 40%.4 

Here’s a statistic that should terrify every recent graduate: Gen Z men with college degrees now have roughly the same unemployment rate as young men without degrees. Computer science graduates are facing 6.1% unemployment—nearly double the rate of philosophy majors.2 

The Unexpected Consequence: AI Makes Us Less Social 

But something else is happening that I didn’t anticipate—something that could have profound implications for the experiential economy. 

Recent research shows that the more people interact with AI chatbots, the less they interact with real human beings.5 Think about the implications. If humans are wired to crave interaction, and AI was trained on human interactions, what happens when AI becomes our primary “social” outlet? 

Just like with video games and social media, AI interaction appears addictive by design. The more we use AI, the more money the purveyors of large language models make off us. Should we expect anything different from this more sophisticated technology? 

The Experiential Economy Under Pressure 

Now we’re seeing the impact on those same experiential stocks that soared post-COVID. Live Nation, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Cava, and others are expressing caution, and their stocks are getting hit accordingly.6 The convergence is striking: fewer people with disposable income due to AI-driven job losses, combined with those who still have money increasingly choosing to interact with AI rather than seeking human experiences. It’s a double hit to the experiential economy. 

Will History Repeat? 

This raises a critical question: Will AI bring an end to experiential spending, or will it eventually just make us crave it more—like after COVID? 

If we’re truly wired for human connection, perhaps the AI isolation will eventually spark another pendulum swing back to experiences. But there’s a difference this time: post-COVID, people had money and pent-up demand. In an AI-driven future with 10-20% unemployment, will they have the resources to act on that craving? 

The Investment Angle 

From an investment perspective, this represents a complex inflection point. Companies successfully deploying AI will see margin expansion unlike anything in recent memory. But if unemployment spikes and social isolation increases, who’s left to buy experiential services—or anything else? 

The corporate obsession with cost-cutting through AI works beautifully on an individual company basis while potentially creating systemic economic risk. You can’t have a thriving experiential economy—or any consumer economy—without consumers who have both income and the desire for human interaction. 

I’m watching for companies that recognize this dynamic. The winners won’t be those who optimize for AI efficiency alone, but those who understand the interplay between productivity gains, employment, and the fundamental human need for connection. 

Where This Leads 

Last year I predicted the “moment in the sun” for workers had passed. The data confirms it. But the implications extend beyond employment. We may be witnessing the beginning of a feedback loop: AI eliminates jobs, reducing consumer spending power. Meanwhile, AI chatbots reduce our desire for human interaction, further pressuring experiential businesses. 

Is this temporary or permanent? If COVID taught us anything, it’s that humans eventually crave connection. But the question isn’t just desire—it’s means. You can crave Olive Garden all you want, but without a job, you’re eating at home. 

The white-collar reckoning I predicted is here. The experiential economy may be next. 

Just sooner and more interconnected than I anticipated. 

REFERENCES: 

  1. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, “Job Cuts Report,” June 2025 
  2. FinalRound AI, “12 White-Collar Jobs Most at Risk from AI in 2025,” 2025 
  3. Axios, “Behind the Curtain: Top AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbath,” May 28, 2025 
  4. CNBC, “AI is already taking white-collar jobs. Economists warn there’s ‘much more in the tank’,” October 22, 2025 
  5. The Wall Street Journal, “The More I Talked to an AI Chatbot, the Less I Talked to Everybody Else,” 2025 
  6. The Wall Street Journal, “White-Collar Jobs Vanish, Corporate Layoffs Continue as AI Starts to Bite,” 2025 

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