Up Next @ WorkTech: Reading the Room on AI During Grad Season

Welcome to another packed episode of Up Next @ WorkTech, the crossover podcast featuring George LaRocque and Kate Achille. In this edition, George and Kate break down the rapidly shifting intersections of AI and the technological developments redefining the modern workplace. The Gen Z Dilemma: The hosts dissect a recent viral commencement speech where graduates booed a corporate narrative praising AI and billionaires. Forced Tech Adaptations: AI is reshaping academia. Princeton University has phased out its 133-year-old unproctored honor code to combat AI cheating, while a massive Instructure Canvas outage recently derailed finals week at Rutgers and other schools. The Benefits Scale-Back: Major employers like Zoom and Deloitte are cutting 401(k) matches and parental leave. Kate and George consider how leveraging the current employer market power to slash benefits risks cultural backlash when the talent market swings back. The Solopreneur Illusion: Reviewing the new Workday, Anthropic, and LISC accelerator, Kate and George argue that giving 15 solopreneurs just $10,000 and limited Claude AI credits is more of a corporate goodwill exercise than a structural business accelerator. Big Tech Infiltrates HCM: Intuit is making an aggressive move into the SMB payroll and HCM space with QuickBooks Workforce, posing a direct threat to legacy players like ADP and Paylocity. Meanwhile, AWS is entering high-volume recruiting with an agentic platform, though George warns they may underestimate the complex 12-to-18-month enterprise sales cycle. M&A and Funding Wins: Following key acquisitions by Greenhouse and Ashby, asynchronous Voice AI is overcoming historical candidate pushback to become a core recruiting interface. Finally, the hosts celebrate Kashable’s $60 million Series C round as a massive win for employee financial wellness.