Gen Z Using AI for Polywork, Cyber Crime Losses Spike, Copilot’s AI Oops

Hey everybody, it's Gene Marks, and welcome to this week's episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. This is where we take a few items of news from the prior week that affects your small business and mine, and we talk a little bit about that news.

The first news comes from an article in fortune.com this week. It's about Gen Z and now they're ditching full-time jobs for what they call poly-employment as AI reshapes work. This article from Fortune explores the rise of poly-employment, where many Gen Z workers are struggling or juggling multiple part-time freelance roles instead of holding a single full-time job.

The trend is being driven partly by economic instability and partly by the growing use of AI tools that allow workers to be more productive across multiple roles. According to research cited, Gen Z makes up more than half of workers engaged in this behavior, with some using AI to manage workloads more efficiently and become AI advantaged.

However, the shift is not purely voluntary. It reflects a labor market where traditional full-time roles with benefits are harder to secure, particularly in entry-level positions increasingly impacted by automation. The result is a more fragmented, flexible, but also less stable career model where younger workers diversify income streams to hedge against job insecurity and AI-driven disruption.

I think that is a big reason why we are seeing anywhere from 400,000 to 600,000 new job applications filed, new jobs for new business applications every month. There are lot of companies, a lot of individuals that are out there – particularly, younger individuals – that have a lot of side gigs going, that have their own businesses they've started up, or maybe they're just freelancers and working multiple jobs.

I think the labor market, because of AI, is going to change a lot over the next decade. The reports that we're getting about jobs and full-time jobs from the Department of Labor; I think are going to be out of date and obsolete. It's all going to be about income because tomorrow's worker – and we're talking about the Gen Zers now and then the Generation A that's behind them – I don't think the full-time job thing is going to be as common as we're seeing it right now. We're going to see a lot of people having jobs, maybe a few part-time jobs, maybe a few other opportunities where they're putting some jobs together, but they are earning different things and they're using AI and other technologies to make them that much more productive.

So, an interesting trend among Gen Zers is they are taking more jobs because they're actually able to get more work done because of technology.

Our next report comes from a website called Cyberscoop.com, and it is reporting on the FBI's latest Internet Crime Complaints Center report, which highlighted a surge in cybercrime with reported losses reaching roughly $20 to $21 billion in 2025 – up sharply from prior years.

Complaints exceeded a million with phishing, investment fraud, and extortion among the most common crimes. Investment scams, especially those involving cryptocurrency, were the most financially damaging, accounting for nearly half of all losses.

The report also notes the growing role of artificial intelligence in enabling more sophisticated scams, including deep fakes and impersonation schemes. Older Americans were disproportionately affected, suffering billions in losses. Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting incidents, and business email compromise schemes remain major threats.

Overall, the FBI warns that cybercrime is becoming more organized, technologically advanced, and financially devastating. And again, AI is driving a lot of that, as well.

What do you do as a business owner? Well, obviously, it has never been more important to make sure that you are protected against breaches and crimes. I think the biggest thing you can do besides getting software is getting training. I think you need to have an outside cybersecurity firm or an IT firm provide continuous and regular training for your employees so they can see and help identify potential malware or phishing scams. These deep fakes are getting better and better, but humans can detect these kinds of things if we just slow down a little bit and know what to look for, and I think the training aspect of this can come a long way.

Also, as good as AI is being to help the bad guys, there are a lot of AI tools that are coming to help the good guys, as well, and I do think that we're going to continue to see more upgrades in our security software leveraging AI to identify AI and help us better defend ourselves against these cybercrimes. But, get training, it’s really important.

A couple other quick pieces of advice when it comes to cybercrime; Make sure you've updated your operating systems on all the desktops in your company, as well. It's low-hanging fruit for, you know, malware people to find your devices that are running all your older operating systems: just easier to get into them. So, make sure you're running the most current version.

And, finally, if you don't already have it, make sure you've got some forms of cyber insurance and business interruption insurance. I mean, God forbid you get hit by malware or a data breach and you're down for a bit or your customers are potentially suing you for any mistakes you may or may not have made. You want to make sure that you've got insurance to back you up.

So, get training, get cyber insurance, as well, and make sure you're updating your operating systems on all of your devices.

Hey, a quick side note, managing your team doesn't have to be complicated. I mean, from hiring the right people to getting them onboarded and keeping things running smoothly, Paychex has the HR tools and support you need to do it all. It's like having an extra set of hands when you really need it.

So, if you're curious, visit paychex.com/meetpaychex. That's P-A-Y-C-H-E-X dot-com forward slash M-E-E-T-P-A-Y-C-H-E-X. You can also find the link in our show notes.

And in this week's AI news, a piece of news that came out about Microsoft, how they are warning users not to rely on Copilot, highlighting the limits of AI advice. This is a piece in Gizmodo, which I also reported in my Main Street Roundup, which you can find every Sunday on Forbes.com.

The article focuses on the controversy surrounding Microsoft's Copilot AI after users discovered language in its terms of service warning that the tool is for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for important decisions. The disclaimer states that copilot can make mistakes and may not work as intended, urging users to treat its outputs cautiously.

Microsoft later clarified that the wording is outdated and a remnant from Copilot's earlier days as a Bing-based assistant, but the episode underscores a broader issue across the AI industry: reliability, of course, right? Experts note that users often fall into automation bias, placing too much trust in AI-generated response despite no limitations like hallucinations and inaccuracies.

The takeaway is clear; AI tools can enhance our productivity, but they are not decision-makers and require human oversight, especially in business or high-stake context.

Just a warning to all of you guys. I mean, I'm the same way. You go on to ChatGPT or Co-pilot, Gemini, or Claude, you ask it a question, gives you a response. Man, we get the response, we take it at face value, and then we move on. We're busy, you know? Well, we shouldn't be doing that.

These AI assistants are great resources for us. They can really help us make decisions. They can do analysis. They can rewrite emails. They can provide a lot of good information for us, but we have to take what they say with a grain of salt, like any good AI assistant, like any good assistant, human or otherwise. No one's perfect and neither is AI. We can't expect our AI to be perfect.

So, whenever you do get a response back, and if it's important enough decision and you're going to rely on that response for that decision, you really want to make sure that you're doing your due diligence and checking out the background. I use AI – ChatGPT, mostly – to help me with research for my articles. It gives me great information, but before I put it into any of the columns that I write, I always click through to verify those links and to verify the information in those links just to make sure that everything is good.

So, you know, Microsoft usually gets the attention because there's such a big company and easier to get news from, but all of the AI chatbots are the same way. You can't trust them 100%. You need to make sure that you're doing your due diligence before you do take any of their information and use it for important decisions.

My name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching this week's episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. If you need any help or advice or assistance in running your business, sign up for our Paychex Thrive newsletter. Go to paychex.com/thrive.

And of course, if you need any HR help, where you can get an extra set of hands when you really need one, go to paychex.com/meetpaychex and you'll find out how Paychex can help you with all of your HR needs.

Thanks again for watching and listening. We look forward to seeing you again next week with some news that impacts your business. We'll talk to you then. Take care.

Do you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on THRIVE? Please let us know. Visit payx.me/thrivetopics and send us your ideas or matters of interest. Also, if your business is looking to simplify your HR payroll benefits or insurance services, see how Paychex can help. Visit the resource hub at paychex.com/worx. That's W-O-R-X. Paychex can help manage those complexities while you focus on all the ways you want your business to thrive.

I'm your host, Gene Marks, and thanks for joining us.

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