When Walmart Inc. announced on October 16, 2025, that it had partnered with OpenAI to create “AI-first shopping experiences,” it was more than just another technological leap for the world’s largest retailer. According to 24/7 Wall St., the move signals a seismic shift in how retail giants operate—and, perhaps more worryingly for many, in how many people they employ. The company’s embrace of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally alter not just its own workforce, but the broader landscape of entry-level employment across industries.
Walmart’s new AI-driven approach is designed to revolutionize the customer experience. As the company describes it, “Through AI-first shopping, the retail experience shifts from reactive to proactive as it learns, plans and predicts, helping customers anticipate their needs before they do.” Shoppers will be able to research, plan, and even complete most of their purchases before ever setting foot in a store. That’s not all: Walmart’s AI will provide detailed product knowledge—more, the company says, than even the manufacturers themselves. The days of needing a knowledgeable employee in every department may soon be over.
This transformation isn’t limited to sales and customer service. Checkout, already partially automated at most Walmart locations, is moving toward what the company calls “Instant Shopping”—a seamless, fully AI-powered process. And AI’s reach will extend even further: it will help Walmart combat “retail shrinkage”—the roughly 1.2% of inventory lost to theft by customers and employees—by spotting stolen goods at both the front and back doors. The company expects these changes to save tens of millions of dollars annually.
But the drive for efficiency doesn’t stop there. Walmart envisions a future where AI-powered delivery trucks bring merchandise directly to customers’ cars, eliminating thousands more jobs. As 24/7 Wall St. notes, “In time, Walmart will make more money because it has fewer and fewer workers.” The company’s three-year plan is explicit: AI will enable higher profits by reducing the size of its workforce.
Walmart’s strategy is hardly unique. A recent study by the British Standards Institution, reported by The Big Issue on October 20, 2025, reveals that 41% of business leaders across Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US say AI is already enabling them to make redundancies. Nearly half (43%) expect to reduce junior roles over the coming year as AI-driven efficiencies take hold. The study’s authors warn of a looming “job-pocalypse” for entry-level workers, dubbing them “Generation Jaded”—a cohort whose schooling and early careers have already been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, now facing an uncertain employment future with few opportunities to build skills or industry knowledge.
The numbers paint a stark picture. According to job search site Indeed, graduate job postings have fallen by a third over the past year. Adzuna reports a 32% drop in junior and graduate roles since late 2022, with postings at their lowest since 2020. In the tech sector, the hit is even more dramatic: research by Ravio finds that entry-level hiring across Europe is down more than 70% in the past year. “Companies looking to make immediate cost savings by not hiring or getting rid of low-skill, low-experience workers—that typically targets the young,” said Andrew Rogoyski of the Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence, as quoted by The Big Issue. “Graduate employment is slowing down, for example, not just in the UK, but around the world. And a few recent studies are suggesting that actually this might be due to early effects of generative AI.”
The impact is most acute for jobs involving “knowledge aggregation and writing”—roles like interpreters, translators, writers, sales representatives, and journalists. A Microsoft study analyzing over 200,000 conversations with Bing Copilot found that AI could assist with 98% of interpreters’ and translators’ core tasks, 91% for historians, 85% for writers, 84% for sales representatives, and 81% for journalists. “Anything that involves the treatment of knowledge in an administrative sense appears to be relatively vulnerable,” Rogoyski explained.
For those in these professions, the effects are already being felt. “My work is probably about 50% of what it was two years ago,” said Beth (not her real name), an Ireland-based translator with two decades of experience, in an interview with The Big Issue. “Nobody’s written to say ‘we’re using AI,’ but agencies that once gave regular work have become platforms, or been bought by American conglomerates. Now most jobs are bottom-line, first-come-first-served.” Beth described how the work has become fiercely competitive and less reliable, with AI tools missing the nuances, empathy, and cultural understanding crucial for high-quality translation. “Sometimes AI makes things up. With translation that’s a serious risk.”
Yet, not every job faces the same threat. The Microsoft research also identified roles with almost zero risk of automation—jobs requiring physical labor, manual dexterity, or context-specific skills. Embalmers, floor sanders, massage therapists, dredge operators, and water treatment plant operators all have AI applicability scores close to zero. Danny Morgan, an osteopath and massage therapist, told The Big Issue that while his clinic uses AI for administrative tasks like auto-generating treatment notes, “the human element—hands-on work, really knowing a patient—can’t fully translate to AI.” He added, “AI can assist, but it can’t replace that connection.”
Still, experts caution that even these “safe” jobs may not be immune forever. “Advances in robotics are happening at pace, and those physical jobs may be very displaceable in five years’ time,” Rogoyski warned. The future, it seems, is anything but certain.
This uncertainty extends beyond the job market. The Bank of England has cautioned that the current hype around AI could be fueling an unsustainable bubble, with companies like OpenAI now valued at $500 billion. Should the bubble burst, a sharp market correction could trigger a recession, with serious implications for global economies. “The risk of spillovers to the UK financial system from such global shocks is material,” the Bank noted.
For young people entering the workforce, the stakes are especially high. The collapse of entry-level opportunities threatens the entire talent pipeline, making it harder for new workers to gain experience and rise through the ranks. “If you displace, let’s say, a sort of entry level bookkeeper with an AI, that bookkeeper may have gone on to become a high-flying accountant, or a financial director of a FTSE 100 company or something, but that track is no longer there,” Rogoyski observed.
Walmart’s AI-powered transformation is just one example of a broader trend reshaping the world of work. As AI continues to advance, businesses and policymakers alike face urgent questions about how to balance efficiency and innovation with the need for meaningful, sustainable employment. The choices made now will determine not just the future of shopping, but the fabric of society itself.
For workers everywhere, it’s a moment of profound change—one that demands both vigilance and adaptability as the age of AI unfolds.
