Earlier this summer, I had to get a presentation to a prospective client within hours. And it had to look fabulous. I knew a young web designer who was brilliant at creating presentations with AI. I knew that if she reformatted my presentation, there was no way I would lose the deal. I offered to pay her for extra time, over time, any time I could get with her. But when I called her, she said she had to get back to me and think about it.

That very evening, while my husband made our family dinner, I taught myself how to redesign my entire pitch with the help of AI. And I landed the deal. And a young brilliant designer just lost a job to AI.

There has been so much reporting out there about whether AI takes or makes jobs. As a solopreneur , I have benefited greatly from these innovations. It’s far easier to pay for a Gemini or chatGPT subscription than handle payroll taxes and onboarding. I don’t have to interview an agent or track them down at a happy hour to get their help.

At the same time, I have always thrived from having colleagues and love nurturing upcoming talent. As the byproduct of legacy media brands like The New York Times , junior people who have worked for me have taught me an incredible amount about carving out my own brand, embracing social media to elevate my work and adopting the incredible chutzpah that creators have when building my business. It’s something I have very mixed feelings about because I realize my children will someday work for someone making the same calculation.

But I realize it doesn’t have to be one or the other - and in fact I can still hire while using AI to grow my consulting business. AI helps me with administrative tasks. But it doesn’t provide the creative thoughts that colleagues give and actual work they can do to bring in business.

Gusto released a report this past week finding that small businesses that have embraced AI are hiring at a faster rate than those that have not. In fact, businesses with fewer than 10 employees grew their employees by 10%. Small businesses in the health care and education space grew their teams by 20%. Gusto described the people who are being hired as “do-ers, people who produce more of the work that business provides to its customers.” These works are directly improving productivity.

While Ramp, a financial start-up, and Revelio Labs, a work force data firm, published data in June that showed a similar impact, they also noted that these companies are hiring entry level workers. That’s a relief to every parent fearful that AI means that their children will be living in their basements forever.

But Ramp and Revelio also carry their own caveats with their work. It’s not just every company that benefits. The study noted that “AI adoption remains concentrated among a relatively narrow group of companies and industries. Adopters are disproportionately found in knowledge-intensive sectors and tend to be larger, faster-growing, and more technically oriented than companies that never adopt.”

There’s still plenty of well-researched data out there that points to AI as a job killer. Stanford University professor Erik Brynjolfsson updated his widely reported findings in August to show that employment of young workers between ages 22 and 25 in AI-exposed occupations is 19% below where it would be if it kept pace with industries less exposed to AI. That’s even higher than when Stanford started researching this number a year before. Plenty of headlines about the “headcountless economy” followed, meaning companies can grow without adding employees.

But in my reporting, I am still meeting entrepreneurs who are creating these jobs. At a conference I attended in May hosted by venture capital firm Slow Ventures and AI startup Delphi, the room in the garment district filled with creators. It became very clear that creators are becoming very skilled at making sure AI works for them. In fact, Julia Berolzheimer grew her business Girl Meets Glam with her husband Thomas ten fold from AI, though Julia emphasized that was for operational work.

“Creativity cannot be created through AI,” said Julia.

That gives me hope for the next generation, from my kids to the designer who couldn’t make up her mind about whether to edit my pitch deck. There are plenty of things that AI can do. But as Julia Berolzheimer reminded us, there is plenty that AI cannot.