✅ Businesses Leveraging AI Hire *More* Humans

🎉 Happy Friday, funds family!

According to a 🔗 new study led by Ramp, the companies spending the most on AI adoption grew headcount ~10% more than comparable firms that had not yet adopted AI.

This flies in the face of the narrative that AI will kill all jobs. Let’s look under the hood at the specifics of the study.

➡️ Three Groups of AI Usage

The study breaks businesses into three categories of AI usage:

• Never used AI

• Low AI users ($2.78 spent per employee per month)

• High AI users ($33.67 spent per employee per month)

As you can see from the table, the High AI users also tend to be smaller companies by headcount with higher mean salaries and higher technology focus.

➡️ AI Adoption by Sector

AI usage varies considerably based on sector. Note that “Finance and Insurance,” the group that would encompass most investment fund managers, is one of the fastest-adopting sectors. We can confirm, based on the number of Claude-generated documents we receive from clients. 😉

➡️ Results of the Study

The study reached six primary conclusions:

• The Biggest AI Spenders Added ~10% More Humans: Firms making the largest AI investments grew employment by roughly 10.2% over the two years following adoption, while low-intensity adopters saw no statistically significant change.

• The Hiring Boost Builds Over Time: The employment gap between high-intensity adopters and their peers emerged roughly 6–12 months after adoption and continued widening, consistent with a learning curve as firms integrated AI into workflows.

• Junior Roles Grew Too: Entry-level headcount increased about 12% at high-intensity adopters, countering the view that AI adoption reduces demand for junior workers.

• Hiring Increased Across Departments: High-intensity adopters expanded headcount across multiple functions, including sales (~10%), administration (~8%), engineering (~7%), and customer service (~6%). The gains were not concentrated in a single department.

• Tech-Sector Companies Saw the Biggest Results: The clearest sector-level gains appeared in the Information sector (software, internet, and media firms), where high-intensity adopters grew headcount by about 13%, while other sectors showed smaller or statistically insignificant effects.

• The Gap Widens Further Against Companies That Never Adopted: When high-intensity adopters are compared with companies that never adopted AI at all, the employment growth gap widens further. However, the study cautions that adopters were already growing faster than never-adopters before AI entered the picture, so this comparison is less reliable than the headline results above.

➡️ Some Fun Charts

➡️ Our Takeaway

Ultimately, the results aren’t overly surprising.

Firms enthusiastically deploying AI are likely more productive, which lets them grow revenue faster than their competitors and hire more people as a result.

TIL Partners is heavily investing in AI. We spend hundreds of dollars per employee per month, and it’s an obvious choice.

Shout out to Ramp for putting this study together.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

Have a great weekend! 🙌

⚠️ Note: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and nothing should be considered legal advice. For that, hire a lawyer! I am a lawyer, but not your lawyer (unless I actually am your lawyer because you’ve signed an engagement letter and we’re working together). This may be considered attorney advertising.