Zillennials may hold an early advantage in AI-era workplaces

Workers born near the Millennial-Gen Z divide may be unusually well placed for the AI-era job market, according to a Fortune analysis by business editor Nick Lichtenberg. The argument centers on “Zillennials,” described as people born roughly from 1993 to 1998 who remember a less connected childhood but entered adulthood as smartphones, platforms and now generative AI reshaped work.

Lichtenberg writes that the cohort’s advantage comes from a form of technological dual fluency: enough memory of older habits to judge new tools, paired with enough youth to adopt them quickly. He compares that position with Xennials, the group between Gen X and Millennials that grew up before the commercial internet but adapted to it early in their careers.

The workplace stakes are rising as AI skills become more valuable. PwC’s latest Global AI Jobs Barometer found that workers with AI skills receive a 62% wage premium over peers in the same occupations globally, up from 25% in 2024, according to Fortune’s summary of the report. PwC also found that entry-level jobs in occupations heavily exposed to AI are seven times more likely to call for senior-level abilities such as judgment, critical thinking and stakeholder management.

Lichtenberg ties the claim to brain plasticity, citing research on the prefrontal cortex and its development into the mid-20s. He argues that people who encounter a major technology shift between roughly ages 12 and 25 may be especially able to absorb the new tool while retaining context from the period before it.

Timing helped, too

The analysis says Zillennials also benefited from a second factor: they entered work at a better moment than nearby cohorts. Core Millennials, born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, graduated into the 2008 financial crisis, while many core Gen Z workers began careers during the pandemic-fractured labor market, Fortune notes.

Economic research cited by Fortune supports the idea that bad entry timing can leave long-lasting scars. A 2020 NBER working paper by Jesse Rothstein found that weak early labor-market conditions can reduce employment prospects for new entrants, with wage effects fading by the early 30s but employment damage showing no sign of easing. A Journal of Labor Economics paper by Hannes Schwandt and Till von Wachter found persistent earnings and wage reductions for unlucky labor-market entrants, especially among less advantaged workers.

By contrast, Fortune says many Zillennials were old enough to have gained early career footholds before COVID hit. A June Resolution Foundation report found that British workers born in the late 1990s earned about 12% more in real terms at age 24 than workers born in the late 1980s did at the same age. Fortune also cited The Economist’s 2024 reporting that a typical 25-year-old Gen Zer had household income more than 50% above that of Boomers at the same age.

Gen Alpha could be next test case

Fortune cautions that no study has directly proved boundary cohorts outperform because of technology timing. Lichtenberg also notes that sociologist Philip Cohen has criticized much generational analysis as unscientific.

The next group to watch, according to the analysis, is Gen Alpha, described as children born roughly between 2010 and 2015. ChatGPT launched publicly in November 2022, when the oldest members of that group were about 12, leaving them old enough to remember schoolwork before generative AI and young enough to adopt it while forming work habits.

Fortune argues that employers may need to look beyond the idea of a “digital native” and instead value workers who can explain both what a tool does and what the work required before the tool existed. For schools, the analysis points to a balance: keep enough pre-AI practice for students to build independent reasoning, while also teaching them how to use the technology.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.