New Grads are 1.5x More Likely to Use AI Daily. Here’s Why That Matters for Your Hiring Strategy.

Atlassian's Teamwork Lab research finds that new graduates (ages 21–24) are 1.5x more likely to be daily AI users and 1.7x more likely to treat AI as a creative partner compared to older tech workers. Inside Atlassian, engineering new grads are 19% more likely to be AI superusers and 1.8x as likely to spend an hour or more daily experimenting with AI. The research argues that companies cutting early-career hiring to save costs are inadvertently stalling their AI adoption momentum. A notable finding: younger workers are 38% more likely to hide their AI use from managers due to unclear policies and cultural stigma, which prevents team-wide learning. Recommendations include setting clear AI working agreements, leading by example, and building early-career pipelines that treat new grads as strategic AI collaborators.