“There are reasons to be worried"
Rishi Sunak has warned that artificial intelligence is making it harder for young people to find entry-level jobs, as he urged governments to consider scrapping National Insurance to make hiring workers more attractive.
The former PM said AI is already reshaping recruitment across sectors such as law, accountancy and the creative industries, with graduates facing a tougher jobs market as companies rely more heavily on automation.
Now an adviser to Anthropic and Microsoft, Sunak said business leaders have privately told him that recruitment of younger workers is slowing because of the technology.
He said: “There are reasons to be worried and think about the future. But we are able to do something about this.”
Sunak suggested the UK should gradually abolish National Insurance and replace it with higher taxes on corporate profits, arguing that businesses benefiting from AI-driven productivity gains should contribute more elsewhere.
Sunak said chief executives were increasingly working on the idea that “flat is the new up”, meaning firms believe they can continue growing without significantly increasing staff numbers.
He told BBC Newsnight: “They’re talking about this concept that they think they can continue to grow their businesses without having to significantly increase employment because they’re starting to see how they can deploy AI.
“That’s why I think we do have to look at this issue very seriously and with purpose.”
Rishi Sunak said governments should focus on making sure AI improves jobs rather than replaces them.
He said: “We should be thinking about, well, how do we tip the balance in favour of AI being used in that positive way… to help people do their jobs better [rather than replacing them].”
He said the impact of AI on employment “may be different to previous technology cycles, and we want to do what we can to tip the scales in a more positive direction”.
Sunak was appointed as an adviser to both Anthropic and Microsoft in 2025.
Earlier this month, Anthropic announced its new AI model, Claude Mythos, which the company said can outperform humans in some hacking and cybersecurity tasks.
The development has triggered fresh concern among regulators, lawmakers and financial institutions over the risks advanced AI could pose to digital services and cybersecurity.
Sunak said the emergence of Mythos showed that governments could not leave regulation entirely in the hands of private firms.
“We shouldn’t rely on companies to mark their own homework.”
He added that it was to Anthropic’s credit, and to Britain’s benefit, that the UK’s AI Security Institute, created during his premiership, became the first organisation to test Mythos’ capabilities.
The Conservative MP also revealed he had recently worked alongside Labour’s deputy prime minister David Lammy to promote investment in Britain’s technology sector at an AI summit.
Rishi Sunak said he was a “big believer” in “Londonmaxxing” and “Britmaxxing”, terms increasingly used in the tech industry to describe the recent wave of multi-billion-pound investment into the UK sector.
He added: “I know people like to talk us down…or say that things aren’t working but in this area there are huge reasons for us to feel confident and proud.
“We are an AI superpower any which way you look at it.”
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