AI Coding Tools Wipe Out Entry-Level Jobs for New Grads

Tech giants including Amazon, Intel, Meta and Microsoft have cut staff and leaned on AI coding assistants, sharply reducing openings for junior software engineers. New computer science graduates now say months of applications yield little response, with one Purdue alum noting that Chipotle was the only company to call her.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York data shows unemployment among recent computer science majors at 6.1% and computer engineering at 7.5%, more than twice the rate for biology graduates. Some candidates have submitted thousands of applications—one Oregon State graduate tallied 5,762—only to be screened out by automated résumé filters.

Economists and educators in the article agree that entry-level coding roles are the first to be automated by generative AI tools. Facing that reality, graduates are pivoting to roles such as tech sales or moving back home while collecting unemployment benefits.

Masayoshi Son says SoftBank will anchor the coming AI revolution and is unleashing tens of billions of dollars to prove it. The push includes a $6.5 billion deal for chip designer Ampere and planned investments of ¥4.8 trillion ($32.7 billion) in OpenAI.

The campaign builds on Son’s 2016 purchase of Arm for $32 billion—now valued at over $145 billion—and a portfolio that stretches from semiconductors to robotics and cloud software. Executives say the goal is a tightly linked AI ecosystem that boosts long-term shareholder returns.

Earlier Vision Fund misfires left SoftBank nursing record losses just as ChatGPT caught fire, forcing a temporary retreat. Son insists the AI cycle is still young, yet the article points out that fast-moving challengers like China’s DeepSeek make this renewed gamble unusually high-risk.

OpenAI has rolled out “study mode” in ChatGPT, positioning the chatbot as a tutor that uses the Socratic method, custom quizzes, and study plans. Google released its own set of study tools the same day, signaling a direct push into the student market.

Chegg, already reeling from a May layoff of 250 staffers, is now betting on a $19.99-a-month service that pairs its answers with outputs from ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude. Textbook publisher Macmillan Learning has embedded an AI tutor in its paid platform that guides students to solutions using its proprietary content.

A Digital Education Council survey shows 66% of college students regularly use ChatGPT, while more than half believe heavy dependence could hurt their grades. Professors are countering by moving more work to handwritten or in-class assignments to curb AI-enabled plagiarism.

Accel is leading a new financing round that will value Berlin-based AI startup n8n at about $2.3 billion pre-money. The round is expected to raise hundreds of millions of euros, according to people familiar with the deal.

Meritech Capital is set to join the investment, while Insight Partners lost out to Accel for the lead role. The fresh valuation jumps from roughly $350 million just four months ago and follows a €55 million raise in March.

The deal underscores surging investor appetite for European AI companies as n8n has surpassed $40 million in annual recurring revenue. Highland Europe previously said n8n had landed clients such as Vodafone and Delivery Hero.

Australian GPs are adopting AI scribe tools that transcribe every consultation, with Dr Grant Blashki saying he now relies on the software more than his stethoscope. Patients are asked for consent, and almost all agree because the system lets the doctor focus on them.

Melbourne-based Heidi Health processes almost two million visits a week across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and the UK, while competitor Lyrebird Health recorded 200,000 consults in Australia last week. Both platforms store data under regional privacy rules and let doctors delete or automatically purge notes within days.

Doctors and a former state chief health officer now deem the scribes indispensable, yet academics stress that aggregating sensitive medical data still carries privacy risks. Calls are growing for regulators to confirm the software protects records to the same standard as traditional clinical notes.