KPMG Intern Pulse Survey: As AI Reshapes Entry-Level Work, Gen Z Prioritizes Career Growth and Critical Thinking

THOMAS: “Gen Z sees the risk clearly. Lean on AI for all the thinking early on, and you never build the instincts that make you a strong employee. What's striking is that they're guarding those reps, the hands-on work that builds real human skills, because they know it's what turns an entry-level hire into someone worth developing and investing in.”

• Their top concern about AI's impact on leadership development is over-reliance limiting critical thinking (43%), while only 5% cite job displacement as their primary reaction to AI agents.
• When asked which skills matter most in an AI-agent-enabled workplace, critical thinking and problem-solving ranked first, followed by adaptability and continuous learning and interpersonal and communication skills.
• Looking five years out, interns again put critical thinking at the top, followed by relationship building and communication.
• 76% say future career success will require both human skill and knowing how to direct AI agents well.

THOMAS: “There's a real energy here that's easy to miss under all the disruption headlines. This generation likes working with AI. It makes them more curious, more confident, and quicker to share what they learn. They're not bracing for the future of work, they're pulling it toward them.”

• When AI finishes a task in seconds, their top reaction is motivation to learn more.
• They're bullish on themselves: 72% say their internship made them better at working with AI agents, and 75% say AI has increased their confidence in a professional setting.
• They share the wealth, too: As they used AI, 42% describe themselves as highly collaborative – actively trading prompts, workflows and lessons learned with peers.
• Their mindset toward AI agents is overwhelmingly exploratory: 61% say their primary reaction is curiosity about how work will change.

THOMAS: “Gen Z isn’t using AI to skip the hard part. They're using it to get to the hard part faster, the analysis, the framing, the tough calls. That's exactly how you'd want someone stepping into more senior roles to use the technology.”

• Close to half (46%) say AI will make them more productive without changing their career trajectory and 31% believe AI will accelerate their career growth.
• When asked what they thought the workplace would look like in 5 years, AI agents handling most routine work while humans focus on judgment and relationships (34%) and humans and AI agents working as collaborators (31%) were the most popular selections.
• 53% say AI’s most enabling them to understand new topics faster, and 19% say it helps them produce work that feels more senior than their experience. Of note, only 1% say AI’s biggest value is to churn out polished work that lacks depth or original thinking.
• 61% say AI success should be measured by the quality and effectiveness of work it produces; compared with just 2% who say by frequency of use.
• 51% say they’d use AI more if their employer rewarded it, however, they remain cautious with 38% saying rewarding AI usage could create pressure to use it unnecessarily.
• 64% say more than a quarter of their current assignments are AI-assisted.

THOMAS: “You build judgment in the room: watching how a partner handles a tough client call, getting feedback in real time, and learning from people who've done it. Our first digitally native generation is telling us the in-person stuff matters more than ever.”

• Over half say direct coaching was the most valuable way they learned during their internship (57%), while AI-assisted learning ranked last at 3%.
• Asked how universities could better prepare them for the workforce, interns selected more hands-on, real-world experience (44%) as the top response.
• 53% believe AI will make workplaces less human, yet 59% believe managers and mentors become more important in an AI-driven workplace (only 9% say less important).
• 48% say building relationships and speaking with others about opportunities and challenges is the single biggest value of being in the office, more than any other benefit.
• Half (50%) said the most valuable outcome of KPMG Lakehouse was building meaningful relationships and networks for the future.