AI & Work News Digest — Feb 20, 2026
Here’s what mattered this week in AI and the Future of Work.
🔥 Top Story: The “Jobless Expansion” Is Here
Oxford Economics projects U.S. job gains will average less than 40,000 per month in 2026 — even as GDP keeps growing. Axios laid out the three-step story: companies over-hired in 2021-22, streamlined in 2023-24, and are now betting AI lets them push those savings further. Meanwhile, a Fortune analyst warns the economy is learning to grow without creating jobs.
Rob’s take: Growth without jobs isn’t growth — it’s extraction. If you’re not investing in your people right now, you’re building on sand.
🤖 AI Tools & Releases
Alibaba drops Qwen 3.5 (open-weight, 397B params) — Enhanced agentic capabilities, compatible with open-source frameworks. The moat around proprietary AI keeps shrinking. CNBC
Kimi Code debuts — Open-source agentic coding tool with IDE integration for VS Code, Cursor, and Zed. One to watch. LogRocket
Seedance 2.0 launches — AI video generation aimed at freelancers and small business owners who don’t have a production team. Yahoo Finance
Notion adds AI agents + new models — GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 under the hood, plus auto model selection. Your second brain just got smarter. Releasebot
💼 Work & Hiring
IBM is tripling Gen Z entry-level hires — After hitting the limits of pure AI adoption, they’re redesigning roles around what AI can’t do. This is what smart adaptation looks like. Fortune
AI threatens the staffing industry — Bloomberg reports companies are bringing recruitment in-house with AI tools, cutting out staffing firms entirely. The middlemen are getting squeezed. Bloomberg / LA Times
Shopify + Duolingo go “AI-first, humans second” — Company-wide mandates now official. PwC scrapped plans to hire 100K people. Ireland’s government says early-career jobs are already feeling the impact. Gizmodo
Microsoft’s AI chief: white-collar tasks automated in 18 months — Mustafa Suleyman told the FT that “most, if not all” professional tasks will be fully automated within 12-18 months. Here’s the thing Suleyman keeps getting wrong: tasks aren’t jobs. Automating a task is a tool. Eliminating a job is a decision. IBM just tripled their entry-level hires because they redesigned roles around what AI can’t do. The companies that win this aren’t deleting people — they’re redesigning work. Business Insider
💰 Macro & Money
BRICS announces cross-bank payment system — Designed to reduce dollar dominance using a BRICS digital currency. De-dollarization just went from theory to infrastructure. BlockNow
BRICS + XRP rumors debunked — No, BRICS is not partnering with Ripple. No official statement from either side. Don’t believe everything crypto Twitter tells you. Coinpedia
🛠️ One Thing to Try
Notion AI Agents. If you’re already in Notion, turn on the new agent features this week. Set one up to summarize your meeting notes or triage your task inbox. It takes five minutes, and you’ll immediately feel the difference between using AI and having AI work for you.
What caught your eye this week? Hit reply — I read every one.
— Rob