Eight Survey: Around 74% of Business Professionals Feel Career Anxiety in the AI Era, Revealing a Gap Between Employers and Potential Job Changers

Eight, the business card app provided by Sansan Corporation, conducted a survey on job changes and careers in the AI era. The survey covered 581 business professionals and 487 recruiting personnel working at companies with at least 100 employees that use AI internally. The results show that around 74% of business professionals feel anxiety about their careers due to the evolution of generative AI. About 55% fall into the “potential job changer” segment: people who are interested in changing jobs but are not actively job hunting. Among them, about 89% are open to being approached by companies, saying they would like to hear about good opportunities. Meanwhile, as many companies increasingly emphasize “immediate contribution” and “specialized expertise” alongside AI adoption, only about 14% of recruiters say they are sufficiently meeting the candidates they want through conventional recruiting methods. The findings reveal a major gap: business professionals have latent demand for career change, while companies are not sufficiently reaching the talent they need. As hiring requirements shift in the AI era, the limits of traditional recruiting methods are becoming more apparent. Survey highlights: Among recruiters, about 76% said AI evolution has changed hiring at their companies; about 91% feel hiring challenges such as rising recruitment costs, declined offers or selection withdrawals, and difficulty finding people who match requirements; only about 14% say they can sufficiently meet desired candidates through conventional recruiting methods. Among business professionals, about 74% have felt career anxiety due to the evolution of generative AI; about 66% are taking action to update their careers for the AI era; only about 8% are actively job hunting, while about 55% are interested but not actively looking; about 89% of potential job changers say they would like to hear about good opportunities or would at least listen once regardless of the content. Background: The rapid spread of generative AI is transforming the recruiting environment. In corporate hiring, some tasks are beginning to be replaced by AI, layoffs are progressing overseas, and some companies in Japan have announced plans to reduce new graduate hiring. These trends are significantly influencing hiring policies. For individual workers, AI’s evolution is also prompting a reassessment of their own careers. To clarify the state of the recruiting market in the AI era, Sansan conducted this survey of both corporate recruiters and business professionals, drawing on its experience supporting careers through the professional recruiting service Eight Career Design. Key findings: Among 487 recruiters, 76.4% said the introduction and use of generative AI has changed the talent profiles or hiring policies in recruitment. Among those who perceived changes, 51.6% said their companies now place more emphasis on mid-career and high-class talent who can contribute immediately rather than younger or junior talent with limited experience, while 50.0% said they now place more emphasis on people with high expertise in specific fields. This indicates that as AI adoption advances, corporate hiring policies are shifting toward immediate contribution and specialization. When asked about current hiring challenges, 91.2% of recruiters said they face some issue. The most common challenge was rising recruitment costs at 55.4%, followed by offer or selection withdrawals at 48.9%, and difficulty finding people who match hiring requirements at 46.2%. Among recruiters using job advertisements, recruitment agencies, or direct recruiting services, only 13.5% said they are sufficiently meeting candidates they would like to hire through these methods. In contrast, 39.2% said they are not meeting enough such candidates or are hardly meeting them at all. This suggests that while the talent profiles companies seek are changing, existing recruiting methods alone make it difficult to build enough contact points with candidates. Among 581 business professionals, 73.5% said they have felt anxiety about their own careers due to the evolution and spread of generative AI. The most common source of anxiety was that the required skill level in the AI era is rising, at 59.0%, followed by the possibility that their work may be replaced by generative AI in the future at 29.7%, and the possibility that their workplace may shrink or change in the future at 27.2%. AI’s evolution is encouraging business professionals to improve their skills and reconsider their careers. In response to the evolution and spread of generative AI, 65.9% said they are taking some concrete action related to their careers. The most common action was acquiring AI-related knowledge and skills at 71.0%, followed by changing job responsibilities or taking on new work in their current role at 47.5%, obtaining qualifications or reskilling at 28.5%, and job hunting at 18.0%. Regarding current job-change intentions, only 7.6% said they are actively job hunting. Meanwhile, 55.2% are potential job changers who are interested in changing jobs but have not reached concrete actions such as applying or interviewing. Among this group, the top reasons for not actively job hunting were being too busy to spend time on it at 35.2%, having no major dissatisfaction with their current job at 32.4%, not having a specific company they want to join at 31.8%, lacking confidence that they can find a good opportunity with their skills and experience at 29.0%, and finding it troublesome to start job hunting at 25.9%. When 321 potential job changers were asked how they would feel if they received a direct scout from a company, 73.5% said that if the content were attractive, they would listen and consider changing jobs or at least hear the company out. Another 15.9% said they would listen once regardless of the content, for a total of 89.4%. Only 1.6% said they would not want to receive any approach regardless of the content. This suggests that even potential job changers who are not actively looking may consider a move if approached by a company. Takeshi Hashimoto, General Manager of the Business Promotion Department in Sansan’s Eight Business Division, said the survey shows that the spread of AI is significantly changing both corporate recruiting and the careers of business professionals. Companies are placing stronger emphasis on immediate contribution and expertise, making their desired talent profiles more advanced than before. At the same time, business professionals are increasingly aware of their careers, taking actions such as acquiring skills and taking on new challenges because of career anxiety. However, despite these changes, companies and individuals are not sufficiently meeting within the framework of conventional recruiting methods. In particular, there are many potential job changers who have not yet appeared in the job market but would positively consider a good opportunity. Building contact points with this segment will become increasingly important in future hiring. Eight Career Design, the direct recruiting service provided by Eight, aims to create opportunities for companies and potential job changers to meet, while helping business professionals discover new career possibilities as an extension of their everyday work. Sansan will continue working to solve corporate hiring challenges and support individual career development through its services. Survey overview: The survey was titled “Survey on Job Changes and Careers in the AI Era.” It was conducted online across Japan. Respondents were 487 recruiting personnel and 581 business professionals working at companies with at least 100 employees that use AI internally. The survey period was April 22 to April 24, 2026, and the survey was planned by Sansan Corporation. Percentages in the survey results are rounded to one decimal place, so totals may not always add up to 100%. Eight Career Design is a corporate service of the business card app Eight. It is a direct recruiting service that enables companies to approach candidates based on business card information, career profile information such as career summaries, and job-change intention levels. Companies can search and narrow down candidates from more than 4 million Eight users, the largest user base of its kind in Japan, and approach them without missing changes in their job-change intentions. Sansan Corporation operates under the mission of “creating innovation from encounters” and provides AX services that transform the way people work. Its main services include the business database Sansan, the business card app Eight, the accounting AX service Bill One, the contract management service Contract One, and the data quality management service Sansan Data Intelligence. The company was established on June 11, 2007, is headquartered at Shibuya Sakura Stage 28F, 1-1 Sakuragaokacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, and had capital of 7.35 billion yen as of February 28, 2026.