I’m paying my staff millions of dollars this year to learn AI. Read that again.

The International Monetary Fund estimates 60% of jobs are threatened by AI. Powerful CEOs talk about fewer workers, smaller teams, even the “end of work.” While many companies race to cut headcount, we are doing the opposite.

At Met Council, New York’s largest Jewish human services nonprofit, we pay our staff, every week, to learn how to use AI. We believe something simple but increasingly radical: work has value, work gives people dignity, and work gives people meaning.

If we get this wrong, AI will not just eliminate jobs. It will eliminate purpose for millions of Americans.

That is why the answer cannot simply be universal basic income. UBI may sound compassionate, but it is wildly expensive, politically unrealistic, and too small a vision. The goal should not be to pay people after they are pushed out of the economy. It should be to keep them in it: working, growing, earning, and contributing.

We are proving this works. Every Friday, staff gets paid time to learn AI through customized training with a Silicon Valley firm. Every department has an AI budget. Top learners earn bonuses.

This is not theoretical. Last year, Met Council served more than 325,000 people in need. This year, with AI, we expect to serve closer to 400,000 without laying off a single staff member.

AI is helping our social workers spend less time on forms and more time solving problems. Market by Met Council, our digital food pantry, is now taught at Harvard Business School as a case study in nonprofit innovation. Innovation is not just for corporations. It is for food pantries, front-line workers, and families who need help.

The staff response has been extraordinary: 99% approval rating for our AI classes, and 97% support our direction.

The future of AI cannot be decided only by oligarchs, tech founders, and consultants. It is easy for billionaires to talk about a world without work, but most Americans do not share that vision. They want a role, a paycheck, a purpose, and a reason to get up in the morning.

Three things have to change.

First, CEOs have to engage personally. I spend a quarter of my waking hours learning, testing, and teaching AI. Culture change does not happen by memo. Without personal involvement, AI becomes another app or consultant-driven buzzword instead of part of the operating system of a people-driven organization.

Second, boards and shareholders have to make jobs a priority. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s push to get companies to take workforce impact seriously is pressure that works. Boards should be asking: how are we using AI to protect workers, not just cut them?

Third, government has to lead. Gov. Hochul’s Futureworks commission on AI and the workforce is exactly the conversation we need.

Here is what worries me most. We are getting calls from people in their 20s who are broke. Not middle-aged workers after a layoff. 27-year-olds. Young people who did everything they were told and still cannot see a path to a stable life, a home, a family, or a future. That is a broken social contract, and AI will either help us repair it or end it.

The next big battle is not whether AI is coming. It is already here. The battle is whether AI will destroy jobs or strengthen them. Whether we protect meaning or replace it with a check. Whether we build a new economy where people still matter.

I know which side I’m on. How about you?

Greenfield is the CEO of the Met Council.