To Ride the AI Wave, New York Needs Smarter Training and Data-Savvy Nonprofits

As artificial intelligence rapidly refashions work and society, New York’s readiness for the seismic shift will determine whether the city sustains its promise of opportunity—or deepens its divides.

In the warren of midtown towers, more than 300,000 New Yorkers work in tech or tech-adjacent industries, a cohort larger than the population of Pittsburgh. Yet as artificial intelligence (AI) seeps into every whiteboard session and water cooler chat, those roles—long ladders into the middle class—are quietly being recast. Over the next decade, analysts from McKinsey and the World Economic Forum reckon that up to 60% of jobs nationwide will either morph dramatically or simply vanish, automated out of existence. In New York, a city that has always surfed the waves of economic upheaval, this latest one promises both lucrative horizons and perilous undertows.

The city’s leaders are not blind to the onrushing tide. On June 6th, a coalition of nonprofit organisations, such as Per Scholas, joined business luminaries and City Hall functionaries at a panel on AI workforce readiness. Their message: while AI will surely bring new industries and roles, the metropolis must gird itself lest disruption tip into disorder. AI systems—once an arcane playground for coders—are now being stuffed into legal offices, logistics hubs, and hospitals from Flushing to Flatbush. Entry-level tech jobs, previously a lifeline for those with scant credentials but ample ambition, are now demanding certifications and real-world experience that ever fewer possess.

The consequences are both obvious and subtle. One obvious effect: the bar to entry in lucrative technology roles is rising, especially for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. According to the New York City Employment Training Coalition, applications for basic IT certification programmes have surged in the past year, yet graduates report that even after upskilling, firms increasingly require hands-on expertise in deploying AI-driven platforms. A position once open to the raw, the earnest, and the self-taught now seems reserved for a select, credentialed few.

A subtler but no less worrisome trend is the risk that AI-driven job churn will mirror—and perhaps magnify—the city’s inequalities. Historically excluded groups, from recent immigrants in the outer boroughs to Black and Latino communities in Harlem and the Bronx, face higher hurdles in access to training, professional networks, and child care. As automation devours roles in retail, clerical work, and transport—sectors where these groups are over-represented—demand for support services (food banks, workforce counselling, mental health referrals) rises with every layoff.

Beyond workforce disruption, there lies a social question: in a city famed for its capacity to reinvent, can New York use AI as a lever for inclusion instead of exclusion? The city’s social sector seems intent on trying. Many local nonprofits, increasingly reliant on data to gauge impact and attract funding, are experimenting with new “agentic” data platforms that leverage AI to connect clients to services (Salesforce’s tools are one such example). But without a pipeline of staff both skilled in technology and attuned to ethical pitfalls, these platforms risk becoming dusty digital toys, poorly understood and underused.

Here, the numbers jar. A paltry 15% of nonprofit employees in New York, according to the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, report even “familiarity” with basic data analysis, let alone AI-driven decision-making. Training efforts—like Per Scholas’s Salesforce Administrator courses—are a start, but scaling them to match the city’s labour churn is a Sisyphean challenge, especially as demand outstrips philanthropic largesse and public funding.

New York’s predicament, of course, is not unique. Across America, public-private partnerships are being trumpeted as the answer—though often with more flourish than follow-through. The Biden administration’s 2023 “AI and Workforce Innovation Fund” earmarked $50m for pilot programmes nationally, but New York’s slice ($4.1m) is hardly a bulwark for a city with 3.8m working-age adults. Politically, the spectre of automation is fast displacing immigration as a hot topic at job fairs and council hearings, with mayoral contenders touting “AI transition” plans heavier on rhetoric than evidence.

A glance overseas offers both inspiration and warning. In Singapore and Helsinki, state agencies have orchestrated mass retraining initiatives, blending workplace learning stipends with industrial coordination and aggressive targets for digital literacy. The Finns tie funding for NGOs to measurable upskilling outcomes—transparency that New York would do well to mimic. By contrast, London and San Francisco, cities whose economies resemble New York’s, still find themselves mired in half-measures: piecemeal bootcamps, pilot projects that fizzle, and debates postponed in the hope of a benign automation curve.

Will AI divide or unite New York’s working future?

Against this uncertain backdrop, New York’s vaunted public–private pragmatism will be tested. To its credit, City Hall has invited corporate heavyweights to the table, hoping to coax both investment and curriculum guidance from employers who will ultimately steer AI’s deployment. But the politics of partnership can be fickle: business may balk at requirements to underwrite retraining for workers they never intend to hire, while nonprofits—already stretched—may find bureaucratic reporting requirements stifling.

Some avenues, though, promise marginal gains. Expanding apprenticeship schemes in tech firms, aligning community college curricula with emerging AI certifications, and using procurement to nudge both startups and legacy companies towards inclusive hiring would do more than hand-wringing and reports. For all the buzz, genuine data sharing between human services agencies and workforce trainers remains rare. Without a unified system for tracking outcomes—both job placements and client well-being—the city flies half-blind, its efforts doomed to suboptimal returns.

For now, signs are mixed. The private sector trumpets AI-development hubs (Microsoft, Google, Salesforce) in Manhattan as evidence of the city’s tech ascendancy. But the lived experience in Elmhurst or East New York tells a quieter tale: growing anxiety about which coal jobs remain, what skills will matter in five years, and who decides. Uneven progress risks sapping faith in both government competence and the city’s storied social mobility.

With so much at stake, we remain sceptically optimistic. The city’s tradition—hard-bitten but buoyant—has seen it through waves of upheaval before. But unless ambition quickly translates into scaled, sustained investment in both skills and social scaffolding, New York risks bottling up AI’s wealth in a few zip codes while the rest are consigned to techno-anxiety and precarity. The future may be digital, but its dividends will depend upon the choices New York makes today. ■