What the jobs report isn't telling you about AI & the workforce, with Upwork’s Hayden Brown

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**Hayden Brown** (1:58)
The future of work is arriving, and it's arriving on our shores right now, right here, whether we want it to or not. The urgency and the need for all of us to become fluent in using AI for our jobs, I mean, that is something none of us can escape. You can't learn to ride a bike in a seminar. And I think the same is true for AI. Until you're using these tools day in and day out, you're really integrating and pushing, what's the boundaries of what they can do. That's when I think people become extremely capable.
Will humans win or machines win?
I think that is distracting us from, in some cases, putting our collective societal energy towards building a future where everyone wins.

**Bob Safian** (2:41)
That's Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, the global tech platform for freelance workers. As AI radically resets expectations across the workforce, Upwork has a critical vantage point on how the job market is actually evolving. I wanted to talk to Hayden about the on-the-ground reality beyond government job numbers and the dreamy predictions of AI cheerleaders. Hayden is forthright about the pressures facing organizations and their teams, including her own decision to lay off Upwork staffers earlier this year. She shares which jobs are most in demand, the good and bad of AI agents, and where she sees the future of work moving. Plus, she talks about the challenges of leading when even a one-year planning horizon is too far, revealing her specific practices for resetting strategy on the fly.
So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.
I'm Bob Safian, and I'm here with Hayden Brown, President and CEO of Upwork. Hayden, great to see you.

**Hayden Brown** (4:12)
Great to see you, Bob. Thanks for having me.

**Bob Safian** (4:15)
You were last a guest on the show. We were talking geopolitics, Russia, Ukraine. It was pre-Great Resignation, pre-Return to Office controversies, pre-Gaza and Iran. Now, of course, AI anxiety dominates workforce discussions. It's like we've been through decades of change all piled together.
How are you doing? I mean, it's been a challenging time to be a CEO.

**Hayden Brown** (4:39)
You know, it definitely feels like there's a lot happening. I have a kind of running joke with some friends who run other companies. We all say, you know, what's going to be the black swan event of this quarter? Because it just feels like there is so much happening in the ecosystem and things are moving faster and faster.
But I think that also is very exciting. It's a dynamic time.

**Bob Safian** (5:00)
I was going to say black swan every quarter or maybe black swan every week. You don't even know if it's a black swan until it's already moved on, right?

**Hayden Brown** (5:10)
Exactly.

**Bob Safian** (5:11)
You're on the front lines of changing work habits.
And I find myself wondering a lot if sort of traditional assessments capture the realities of the US labor market in 2026 Like the most recent monthly jobs report showed 23,000 jobs lost. But at the same time, unemployment numbers went down. Also, how do you make sense of this data? How much do you focus on it? Does it reflect what you see on Upwork?