When AI offers older workers a second chance: ‘It has given us superpowers’

Manuel López is experiencing the aAIrtificial intelligence revolution firsthand. This 55-year-old from Spain’s Canary Islands co-founded an automation company in 2024 with his 18-year-old son, who is also named Manuel. After several years of setbacks, including being laid off and launching several failed ventures, López found only one way to re-enter the workforce: studying AI.

The idea of starting a start‑up came at his son’s insistence, after the teenager told him he had tried “a transformative tool.” López was finally convinced when he saw “the potential of these systems.” Now, the small company has become his sole source of income, he says, proud to have caught the wave everyone is talking about.

AI is shaking up the job market across all age groups, though not everyone is affected in the same way. On one hand, the versatile usefulness of language models like ChatGPT or Gemini is slowing down hiring for younger workers; at the same time, it can add years of activity for those who thought their professional life had already run its course. That’s the case of Jasmine Sosa, 48, who built her career in the hospitality sector in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands until turbulence in the industry left her unemployed. When the buzz around conversational assistants reached her, Sosa — always interested in computing — enrolled in a course on artificial intelligence and big data. That training was like pressing the right button, she says proudly. In a short time, she found a job at a training center, where she now works as a teacher.

“In the past, once you turned 50 you slowly entered a phase of invisibility within your company, but now this group is going to have an extra opportunity thanks to their accumulated experience and judgment — two highly valuable assets at this moment,” says Tomás Pereda, deputy director of MásHumano, an organization that works to reintegrate people over 50 into the labor market. “They are the generation best suited to steer AI within organizations,” he argues. He believes this technology could benefit a group that is at a disadvantage when looking for work.

“Half of the résumés from people over 55 aren’t even looked at,” says Rodrigo Miranda, author of ReinicIAndo (Rebeginning), which explores key strategies for helping older workers reconnect with professional networks.

Spain is one of the countries with the highest rate of unemployment among older workers compared with its European neighbors. The jobless rate for people over 55 stands at 11.2% — more than double France’s 5.2% and far from the figure in Germany (2.1%) and Italy (4.4%), according to a study on the over‑50 talent pool by the Ageingnomics research center, which is part of the Mapfre Foundation.

Pereda warns that “ageism” continues to harm a generation whose living conditions are very different from those of the past, when life expectancy was lower and reaching 60 often meant a physical decline that was incompatible with work. That argument no longer holds, he says. Even so, there is broad consensus among international organizations and major consultancies that AI will inevitably eliminate administrative‑type jobs.

For Elena Ibáñez, founder of Singular Experts — an organization that promotes the skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow — companies must rethink the role of experienced, later‑career workers at a time of profound transformation. “It’s not enough for them to learn how to use tools; they need to understand that their role will be different, more focused on leading teams or applying their experience to decision‑making,” she argues, while noting that “most companies already take for granted that workers should have basic notions of AI.”

Aware of this new reality, both López and Sosa didn’t hesitate to retrain. López has invested more than €1,500 ($1,760) in various courses — roughly 750 hours — during which he learned to interact with AI and build basic applications without needing to learn programming. The company he co‑runs with his son has developed conversational assistants for the hospitality sector and a video‑calling platform. Sosa’s investment has been smaller, around €200 ($230), but no less intensive. After completing about a dozen “free and paid” courses, she considers herself an advanced ChatGPT user. “The next step is learning how to train my own language models,” she says.

Miranda anticipates in his book that the future will look much like these two examples. “The idea of training once and working for decades has broken down; what will prevail now are training programs that extend throughout people’s entire lives,” the expert argues. Otherwise, the labor market will struggle to absorb all the workers who risk being left behind.

Back to the classroom

Berta Romero, a 55-year-old from Barcelona, ​​went through a difficult period after leaving the firm where she had built her career. Like many legal professionals, she saw AI as a potential lifeline and opened her own practice focused on AI advisory services together with a colleague facing a similar situation. To prepare, she completed a specialized master’s program. She recalls being the oldest person in her class, but that never held her back: “Going back to studying gives you a sense of confidence,” she reflects.

“AI has given us superpowers,” says Flor Rodríguez, a 63‑year‑old Ecuadorian woman living in the Spanish city of Valencia. “Now I can handle complex tasks in Excel or send emails with very polished writing,” she says with satisfaction. Thanks to a short course in prompting — the skill set for giving instructions to AI — she has improved the quality of her work, which involves communicating with clients and suppliers for a construction company. She believes that learning at her age comes with an added advantage over younger workers: “We’re a generation that can still stay focused on one thing without getting distracted.”

The classes taught by Rafa Aguado, an AI instructor based in Madrid, are a clear reflection of the current rush to learn about this technology. Nearly half of the students in his weekday virtual sessions are over 50. “Why are you here?” is the question he always uses to open his workshops. The answer is similar in most cases: fear. “Not because AI is going to replace them — they’re afraid because companies prefer to hire younger talent, people more familiar with these systems, and they want to show that they’re capable too,” he explains.

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