AI Isn’t Replacing MBAs—Yet. Uncertainty Is

MBA graduates are increasingly grappling with AI disruption and reduced corporate hiring

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AI is eliminating many entry-level jobs, and that also applies even to older graduates with advanced degrees. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that one in five Duke MBAs were still job-hunting three months after graduation—up dramatically from just 5% in 2019. Having earned my MBA not long ago, I find myself asking: if AI is supposedly replacing junior workers while companies still need experienced strategic thinkers, why are the most credentialed candidates in the pipeline stuck in limbo?

AI isn’t the enemy here. Uncertainty is. The MBA job market has gone cold. Unemployment rates three months after graduation have surged at top programs: 21% at Duke Fuqua, 25% at Georgetown McDonough, 15% at Michigan Ross. Even Harvard Business School graduates are not sailing through the recruiting cycle as smoothly.

These figures understate the problem. Business school career offices track employment outcomes at the three-month mark, but don’t capture graduates who landed jobs and were subsequently laid off, a common fate in a year marked by rolling white-collar cuts. For some MBA graduates I know, they have postponed having a child not because they don’t want one, but because the job market won’t let them plan that far ahead. That’s what uncertainty does. It doesn’t just delay careers. It delays life.

The MBA was supposed to be a calculated bet. Spend two years and six figures to accelerate into high-six-figure roles. The math made sense when hiring was predictable. It makes less sense when companies freeze headcount and instead wait for clarity on how AI will reshape their organizational charts.

The Job Market Winter Is Here

AI supposedly threatens routine workers while empowering strategic thinkers. Previously, I argued that when AI handles grunt work, companies no longer need juniors learning basics. They need experienced professionals who can combine AI capabilities with business judgment.

MBAs should be those professionals. They have the conceptual clarity, the analytical training, and the leadership qualities that AI can’t replicate. If any cohort should thrive in an AI-augmented economy, it should be this one.

As Centerview Partners co-founder Blair Effron argued in the New York Times, the most consequential business decisions “are questions of judgment, and judgment cannot be automated.” He’s right. Most executives would probably nod along. But nodding isn’t hiring.

ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Global Talent Barometer captures the mood. AI adoption is up 13%. Confidence is down 18%. Companies have the technology. They don’t have clarity on what to do with it—or who they need to run it.

The confidence gap hits experienced workers hardest—a 35% drop among baby boomers, 25% among Gen X. Executives aren’t faring much better. A PwC survey of nearly 4,500 CEOs found that 56% report getting “nothing out of” their AI investments. Just 10% to 12% have seen benefits on revenue or costs.

So companies are betting heavily on AI’s potential while freezing the human capital investments that would realize it. They aren’t cutting MBAs because algorithms can do their jobs. They’re pausing because they don’t know what jobs will exist in the near future.

Heather Byrne, managing director of Michigan Ross’s career office, told the Wall Street Journal that hiring hesitation should ease once companies understand how AI will reshape their organizational charts. But that clarity, she added, could take years. The org chart of 2028 remains illegible. The hiring decisions of 2026 stay frozen.

Compared to entry-level college grads, MBAs face something different. Purgatory. At least entry-level workers know where they stand. MBAs are paying compound interest on a credential whose value is suspended in corporate uncertainty.

The Future Of The MBA And Leadership Jobs

Some schools are adapting. Columbia reported stronger placement rates. Harvard deploys AI to match MBAs with openings and connect them with alumni. Smart moves, but they’re treating symptoms.

Corporate America hasn’t reconciled its AI ambitions with its talent strategy. Executives remain bullish on a technology that hasn’t delivered returns while staying bearish on the humans who would make it deliver.

Until that contradiction resolves, the MBAs will continue to face a lackluster market. The credential that once guaranteed acceleration now buys a place in line, which may not be moving fast enough. Business schools can adapt their curricula. Students can hedge with technical skills. But the real bottleneck is corporate clarity. Until companies decide what an AI-augmented workforce looks like, the most credentialed candidates will keep waiting.