A pro-Kremlin blogger says special forces spent several days in the pipe before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near the town of Sudzha

Gen Z workers are approaching generative AI with a mix of caution and optimism.

Why it matters: Today's young workers are starting their careers during a massive technological revolution.

The big picture: Employers and HR pros say they're willing to take chances on otherwise less qualified candidates if they have AI experience, Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at entry-level job platform Handshake, tells Axios.

• Gen Z "is likely to be the generation that is going to help teach the rest of the workforce GenAI," Cruzvergara adds. "They're more comfortable with it, they don't mind experimenting with it."
• The share of job descriptions on Handshake mentioning generative AI more than tripled from 2023 to 2024 — but still represented fewer than 1% of listings in April 2024.

Case in point: Avalon Fenster, 23, taught herself how to use AI in her personal and professional life — then wound up showing her older coworkers the lay of the land during internships.

• Fenster now runs a platform called Internship Girl, which uses AI to help provide career resources to about 350,000 young women from more than 100 countries.
• She promotes AI to level the professional playing field, especially for first-generation college students or non-native English speakers.

Threat level: Fenster, now a law student, is concerned about AI's impact on critical thinking skills, and wants companies and schools to provide AI literacy training.

• "Even as a young person who is native to these tools, even as someone who advocates for them, I do have concerns over the way that it impacts our ability to think independently, formulate ideas, communicate ideas," she says.

AI's environmental toll is a turnoff for other young people.

• "I personally took a stand to not use AI because of the climate impact," says Katya Danziger, a 25-year-old computer science student and research assistant at Parsons, who stopped using AI chatbots about six months ago.
• Each time you ask ChatGPT a question Axios' Scott Rosenberg reports, you're using much more energy than you would for a Google query.

Career impact is also a Gen Z concern.

• In a recent Pew survey, 35% of U.S. workers between 18 and 29 said they think AI will lead to fewer job opportunities.

Yes, but: "Sometimes having a little bit of nervousness around the fact that it might impact your career is not a bad thing," Cruzvergara says.

• "It keeps you on your toes a little bit, and makes it so that you're ready and nimble."

Go deeper: AI jobs on the rise, new LinkedIn report finds

Thirty people, including at least five children, were also reported injured in the strikes on Ukraine’s embattled Donetsk region on Friday

• Federal workers are protesting mass firings and workplace policy changes with subtle acts of dissent.
• The resistance follows workforce cuts and demands from Trump, Musk, and the White House's DOGE office.
• Workers are using snarky emails, pronouns, and legal action to counter the administration's policies.

First came the spoons, and then the staplers — subtle dissent is rippling through federal government offices in the era of cost cutting under Trump.

In response to a host of wide-ranging orders from President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the White House's DOGE office, they're displaying pride flags, flaunting their pronouns, and sending snarky emails. As one worker said, it's all about "malicious compliance."

"I just go back and forth over which is worse: giving them what they want (an excuse to fire us) or kowtowing to their illegal bullshit," the federal worker told BI, referencing Musk's threat to workers who don't list their week's accomplishments in an email.

Business Insider spoke to 10 federal workers about the ways they're pushing back, granting them anonymity to protect their jobs. While some publicly booed leaders in meetings, others said they're trying to be subtle about their dissent because they aren't always sure which of their coworkers or bosses agree with them.

It's illustrative of the rift that's broken open in recent weeks as the administration has spearheaded efforts to terminate thousands of federal workers, cut federal funding to key programs, and change the way remaining employees do their jobs. The federal employees BI spoke to said they've found comfort in banding together and making statements on the job whenever they can.

The first signs were workers embracing a spoon symbol as a contrast to the "fork in the road" offered by the government, which tried to incentivize workers to leave under a deferred resignation program. A meme of a stapler referencing the cult-classic movie "Office Space" and daring someone to "come and take it" circulated online. And then there's good old-fashioned unionizing.

"This convinced me to join the union at my agency right away, and convince four coworkers to join too," a longtime federal worker said, adding that DOGE has been the "best thing" to ever happen to union membership.

Booing, ignoring emails, and sharing pronouns

BI heard it from dozens of federal workers in recent weeks: They didn't like the emails asking them to list their accomplishments from the past week. A worker at the Office of Personnel Management, the agency that sent the Musk-inspired email, said that information sharing is "huge" among the federal workforce right now — including "ways to write your stupid bullet points."

One employee said that at a NASA town hall, workers booed a director who didn't have clear guidance on how to respond. A Department of Defense worker said, "A lot of people reported the emails as phishing."

While many federal agencies told workers that they were not required to respond to the first email, OPM sent a second email a week later — and some agencies shifted to requiring responses. A Health and Human Services worker was one of a few who said they'll continue to refuse to respond.

Several workers described protests against the administration's new policies regarding DEI and gender, as workers were asked to strip pronouns from their email signatures. Some NASA workers have been introducing themselves with their pronouns during town halls and company meetings, the NASA employee said, and some have pushed back on the agency taking down "gender neutral" signs on restrooms by putting their own signs up. One worker at the Social Security Administration said that while they can't include "she/her" in their email signature, they can still wear a button that says it.

"As soon as DEI stuff came down in the offices, it went up in our cubicles," the SSA worker said. "I know I went out and bought a Trans pride flag for my cubicle as soon as they made us only list male/female."

The NASA worker said that while they suspect there might be "DOGE sympathizers" in upper management, most of their coworkers are "pretty upset and have no problem asking about how to deal with DOGE." An OPM worker said they are being careful because they assume they're being monitored but that everyone they know has been "uniformly appalled." One Department of Defense worker said a coworker tried challenging them to a fight after overhearing them discuss their Trump-related fears.

"I try to be conscious about who I voice my opinions around," they said.

Potential legal action has also helped some employees resist the administration's changes. The OPM worker said that discussing how to file appeals with other employees has been unifying, and the HHS worker is hopeful that there will be further class actions to counter "the emotional distress, hostile work environment, and harassment."

Unions for federal workers filed a lawsuit on February 19 to block the Trump administration's firing of probationary federal workers, or workers who have typically been on the job for under one year. American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement that the administration "has abused the probationary period to conduct a chaotic, ill-informed, and politically-driven firing spree."

But for now, workers are engaging in moments of pushback: One federal worker is using their email signature to resist, signing off every email with a quote on the limits of OPM's power.

And the HHS worker is doing the most prudent thing for their career: "I've been trying to work business as usual," they said. "But I've also been applying to other jobs."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Have a tip? Contact these reporters via email at [email protected] or [email protected] or via Signal at julianakaplan.33or asheffey.97. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Authorities have revealed that the actor died of heart disease a full week after his wife died of hantavirus in their New Mexico home

Police said one man was armed with what appeared to be an assault rifle when the trio fired ‘indiscriminately’ into the bar

Donald Trump’s new Treasury secretary blew off the apparent slowdown in the nation’s economy as nothing more than “detox” as government spending switches to the private sector.

‘I don’t think I’m a criminal,’ he told Tucker Carlson in a jailhouse interview

Americans are missing their car payments at the highest rate in decades, according to Fitch Ratings data.

Why it matters: Car costs, including loans and insurance, have soared in an economy where consumers are showing mounting signs of stress.

By the numbers: 6.6% of of subprime auto borrowers were at least 60 days past due on their loans as of January 2025.

• This is the highest level since the agency began collecting data. The fall and winter of 2024 saw the next highest subprime delinquency rates.
• Prime borrower scores are faring better than subprime, with 0.39% 60-day delinquencies in January 2025, up from 0.35% in January 2024.

Threat level: "Subprime auto loans face a deteriorating outlook for 2025," a Fitch report said.

Driving the news: Multiple factors have increased the cost of car ownership, per Cox Automotive executive analyst Erin Keating, Axios' Joann Muller reports.

• Vehicle prices are higher, averaging just under $50,000, and high loan rates (over 9% for new cars and almost 14% on used cars) are translating to steep monthly payments.
• Plus, car insurance rates are up 19% year over year, while repair and maintenance costs have risen 33% since 2020.

State of play: Other metrics, like consumer confidence and credit card delinquencies, are showing warning signs, too.

• The number of credit card holders only making minimum payments rose to a 12-year high, per the Philadelphia Federal Reserve.
• In the third quarter of 2024, the number of 30-day delinquencies rose to 3.52%, which marked double the rate from the pandemic low in 2021.

Zoom in: Delinquencies typically increase in January and February after the holidays, Mike Girard, Fitch's senior director for asset-backed securities in North America told Bloomberg.

• Low-income borrowers, though, will continue to be affected this year because of inflation and interest rates, he said.

Go deeper: America might have reached "peak truck"