The overlooked way AI could speed hiring and support workers

Most of the national conversation about artificial intelligence and jobs is dominated by fear. The debate focuses on which occupations might disappear, which workers could be displaced and which communities risk falling further behind. This pessimism is taking a toll: According to a recent Gallup poll, U.S. workers’ job market optimism dropped sharply to 28 percent in late 2025, down from 46 percent at the same point in 2024. But fear is obscuring opportunity. While the national debate fixates on which jobs AI might take, it has missed one of the most concrete places the technology could create them. It’s hiding in plain sight, buried in an unglamorous corner of government: permitting.

Derek Kilmer, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is senior vice president of U.S. programs and policy at the Rockefeller Foundation.