Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has advice for youngsters busy on social media watching reels

Economic Times

6 days ago

The clock is ticking on human adaptability
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Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI , has offered blunt career advice for young people: spend less time doomscrolling and more time learning artificial intelligence.'Spend less time doomscrolling on Instagram; spend more time using the AIs,' Srinivas told Matthew Berman in a recent interview.According to him, fluency in AI tools is already becoming a key factor in employability. 'People who really are at the frontier of using AIs are going to be way more employable than people who are not. That's guaranteed to happen,' he said.His warning is clear. Adapt or fall behind.Srinivas believes the pace of change in AI is now outstripping how fast most people can keep up. With new developments rolling out every few months, he thinks this technological churn is forcing an uncomfortable reality on workers across industries.'Human race has never been extremely fast at adapting,' he said. 'The field is moving in cycles of three to six months.'The message is not just about learning new skills. It's about constantly reskilling. Staying still could mean getting left behind.Not everyone will make the transition. Srinivas is realistic about that. Some jobs will vanish, especially those tied to repeatable tasks.But he also sees a possible route forward. People can either become builders, using AI to create new companies, or they can learn enough to contribute meaningfully to the ones already adapting.'Either the other people who lose jobs end up starting companies themselves and make use of AIs, or they end up learning the AIs and contribute to new companies,' he said.It's not just a theory. Others in the AI space share this concern.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that up to 50 percent of entry-level white-collar jobs could disappear in the next five years. Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the 'godfather of AI,' has echoed this, saying AI will replace many tasks that rely on routine thinking.Still, there are some who remain hopeful. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argues that AI will not erase jobs entirely but rather change the way work is done.Srinivas gave a sharp example of what AI can already do today. On The Verge's Decoder podcast, he explained how Perplexity's Comet browser could potentially automate the entire job of a recruiter.'A recruiter's work worth one week is just one prompt: sourcing and reach outs. And then you've got to do state tracking,' he said.But it doesn't stop at just finding candidates.'You want it to keep following up, keep a track of their responses. If some people respond, go and update the Google Sheets, mark the status as responded or in progress and follow up with those candidates, sync with my Google calendar, and then resolve conflicts and schedule a chat, and then push me a brief ahead of the meeting. Some of these things should be proactive. It doesn't even have to be a prompt,' he added.He suggested that tools like Comet, combined with more advanced models like GPT-5 or Claude 4.5, could completely change how routine office work is done.At the moment, Comet is only available to paying subscribers. However, Perplexity has started sending out invitations to free users. A wider rollout is expected soon.Still, not everything will be open access.In a Reddit AMA, Srinivas confirmed that while the browser would be available to all eventually, more complex agent-driven features will likely stay behind a subscription wall.Aravind Srinivas was born in India in 1994 and studied computer science before co-founding Perplexity AI. His company is focused on building conversational AI search tools designed to give direct, clear answers.His broader message is that AI is not just a tool. It's becoming a professional necessity.For Srinivas, those who understand and use it early will be in control of the future job market. Those who don't may end up struggling to stay relevant.