The same giants building AI are now funding the safety net for the workers it might displace.
A bipartisan coalition called RAISE US launched Thursday to prepare the U.S. workforce for AI disruption, backed by employers from Amazon and Microsoft to Bank of America and Eli Lilly. The reason: there’s huge money chasing AI’s chips and models, and almost none securing the workers those models might replace.
Picture the AI gold rush as it actually looks right now. Billions pouring into chips, data centers, and ever-bigger models. Founders minting fortunes before lunch. And somewhere off to the side, a white-collar worker refreshing a job board, wondering if their role survives the next earnings call. RAISE US is the group betting that someone needs to be standing on that side of the room.
What Happened
A new bipartisan consortium called RAISE US launched Thursday with a simple pitch: stop obsessing over who wins the AI technology race, and start preparing the people whose jobs it could upend. The group pulls together state governments, philanthropic outfits, and a heavyweight roster of employers including Amazon, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Eli Lilly.
It’s led by two people from opposite political corners. Gina Raimondo, former Commerce Secretary under President Biden, runs it as chief executive. Eric Holcomb, former Republican Governor of Indiana, sits alongside her. In 2026, getting both sides of the aisle to agree on anything is its own kind of headline.
The Backstory
The worry isn’t new, but the intensity is. The Leadership Now Project, a group of more than 400 current and retired business executives, spent multiple sessions at its spring meeting on AI’s threat to jobs, comparing it to how globalization and offshoring hollowed out careers in past decades.
Holcomb thinks this round is bigger. He called the scale of change and the reshaping of jobs different and more dramatic than anything in human history. Strong words from a former governor, and a sign of how seriously the business establishment is taking this.
The Plan
RAISE US doesn’t want to be just another retraining program. Raimondo says the mission is to “pull all the levers at once.” That means teaming with employers to move workers into new roles, partnering with educators on training, and rethinking policies that date back decades.
The most interesting piece is the policy lab angle. The group plans to explore corporate incentives that reward companies for holding onto disrupted workers and re-skilling them instead of cutting them loose. It also wants to tweak unemployment benefits so displaced workers could keep collecting them while, say, launching a new business with AI tools. The rollout varies by state: Maryland is expanding a service-year option to funnel people toward healthcare, while Arkansas is building an AI-powered career navigation platform.
The Business Model Angle
Here’s the pattern worth noting. When an industry creates a problem at scale, the cleanup usually becomes its own market, and the incumbents would rather shape that market than have it imposed on them. Microsoft’s Brad Smith put the logic plainly: the scale required means no single institution can do it alone.
Translation for operators: the companies deploying AI fastest are also the ones funding the institution that defines what “responsible AI adoption” looks like. That’s not charity, it’s positioning. Whoever writes the playbook on worker transition gets to shape the regulations, the incentives, and the public narrative before someone less friendly does it for them. If your business is going to be blamed for disruption, getting a seat at the table that manages the fallout is a defensive moat dressed up as goodwill.
The Risk
Coalitions are great at launching and terrible at delivering. U.S. workforce development is already a fragmented mess across state agencies and federal programs, which is exactly the problem RAISE US is supposed to fix. Adding another well-funded entity to a crowded field can just as easily add another layer of confusion.
There’s also the credibility tightrope. Raimondo admits she’s worried, which is refreshingly honest, but the employers writing the checks are the same ones citing AI in layoff announcements. If RAISE US becomes a PR shield rather than a real transition engine, workers will notice fast. Good intentions don’t retrain anybody.
Quick Questions
What is RAISE US?
A new bipartisan coalition of employers, state governments, and philanthropic groups, launched in June 2026 to help prepare American workers for AI-driven job disruption.
Who’s running it?
Gina Raimondo, former Commerce Secretary under Biden, is CEO. Former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, co-leads it.
Which companies are backing it?
Named employers include Amazon, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Eli Lilly, plus state governments and philanthropic groups.
Is AI actually going to take that many jobs?
Nobody knows the real number, and that’s the point. The group says workers should be ready for major disruption no matter the ultimate scale, with white-collar roles seen as most exposed.
The Bottom Line
When a wave of disruption is coming, the smartest players don’t just ride it, they build the lifeboats and put their name on the side. RAISE US is part genuine worker safety net and part strategic positioning by the companies with the most to gain from AI and the most to lose from a backlash. For founders, the lesson is sharper than it looks: if your technology reshapes an industry, the institutions that manage the human fallout are not a side quest. They’re where the next decade of rules, incentives, and reputations get written. Better to help hold the pen.
Original reporting by Chip Cutter at The Wall Street Journal. For more on the disruption this group is responding to, see our breakdown of the 2026 AI layoff wave.
