Navigating EV Retrenchment
U.S. automakers can still justify a change in direction, but the conviction, credibility and long-term vision consumers expect are quietly being called into question.
The seventh annual Milken Institute–Harris Poll Listening Project finds that business leaders and American workers are living through completely different versions of the AI transition.
Leaders are using AI daily, projecting confidence publicly, and calling workforce readiness a top priority. Workers are navigating the shift largely alone, unsure what skills to invest in, and skeptical that the promises being made about AI’s upside will ever reach them.
A Surprising Consensus
Underneath that tension sits something the broader conversation has largely overlooked. On the policies that could meaningfully address the AI workforce transition, leaders and workers are far closer than the public debate suggests. Support for protective measures and coordinated investment clears strong majorities on both sides and holds across party lines. Eighty-three percent of Americans agree AI workforce readiness should sit above politics. Ninety percent of business leaders agree.
The Gap That Remains
The disconnect is not about values. Leaders largely agree that individual companies cannot solve this alone and that coordinated national action is required. But 85% admit to feeling pressure to appear further along with AI than they actually are, and workers are bearing the cost of that gap. Forty-one percent say they have received zero employer AI support in the past year, yet 69% still believe AI can create more opportunity than it eliminates with the right approach.
