For the better part of a decade, Gen Z has been discussed as though they were permanently about to arrive. They were the next generation of employees, the next wave of consumers and the next cohort leaders needed to prepare for. That framing is now badly out of date.
The oldest members of Gen Z are approaching 30. They are managing teams, buying homes, shaping brands and making decisions about careers, money and technology in real time. Yet much of the commentary about them still relies on labels formed when they were teenagers: digital natives, purpose-driven employees, phone-call avoiders, job hoppers and climate-conscious consumers.
The problem is not that every one of those labels is wrong. It is that they are too neat. The more interesting story emerging from the latest research is that Gen Z frequently appears to hold two seemingly opposing instincts at once. They are enthusiastic adopters of AI and anxious about what it may do to their careers. They want meaningful work but are pragmatic about the role a job should play in their lives. They prefer digital communication but are not universally terrified of talking to people. They express strong environmental values, yet those values do not always translate neatly into observed behaviour.
For leaders, employers and brands, these contradictions are not noise to be smoothed out. I suspect they are the clue.
Digital natives who are becoming more cautious about digital life
Perhaps nowhere is this tension clearer than in Gen Z’s relationship with artificial intelligence. This is a generation with little hesitation about using new tools. Randstad‘s Gen Z Workplace Blueprint found that 55% of Gen Z respondents use AI to solve problems at work, while 75% use AI as a learning tool. In other words, AI is not a novelty sitting at the edge of their working lives. For many, it is already part of how work gets done and skills get built.
But adoption should not be confused with uncomplicated enthusiasm. Gallup research reported in 2026 found that almost half of Gen Z workers believed the risks of using AI at work outweighed the benefits, even though 56% acknowledged that AI could help them complete work faster. Eight in ten also believed that using AI to accelerate work would make learning harder in the future.
That is a fascinating combination: use the technology, appreciate what it can do, and worry about what it may cost you. Deloitte found something similar. Among Gen Z respondents already using generative AI at work, 78% said it had improved the quality of their work and 77% said it had freed up time and improved work-life balance. Yet 63% worried it would eliminate jobs and 61% feared automation would make it harder for younger people to enter the workforce because so many entry-level tasks are precisely the ones AI can perform.
This matters because it challenges the assumption that younger workers will automatically be the least concerned about technological disruption. Familiarity can produce enthusiasm, but it can also produce a very clear-eyed view of the trade-offs. Gen Z may be among the first cohorts to experience AI not simply as an innovation to master, but as both a tool and a competitor.
They do not hate phone calls. They have changed the rules of interruption.
The same nuance appears in the familiar claim that Gen Z is afraid of the phone. YouGov tested several popular stories about Gen Z phone habits in 2026 and found that some were simply exaggerated. Only 3% said they answer calls from friends or family without offering a greeting. And 82% said they were comfortable calling friends and family.
The difference becomes much clearer when strangers are involved. Sixty-five per cent of Gen Z respondents said calling a stranger made them uncomfortable. Asked how they preferred to contact friends and family, just 17% chose a telephone call compared with 62% of Baby Boomers; 65% of Gen Z preferred text, email or instant messaging.
That suggests something more interesting than “young people cannot talk on the phone”. Communication has become increasingly permission-based. A message can be received now and dealt with later. A voice note can carry tone and personality without demanding that someone stop what they are doing at that exact moment. A call, by contrast, creates an immediate claim on another person’s attention.
I saw a neat example of this recently in the way a Melbourne broker communicates with younger clients. Rather than defaulting to a call, he often sends a voice note with a simple explanation: listen when you have time; I didn’t want to interrupt your day. It is a small shift, but a revealing one. The channel is still human and personal. What has changed is the expectation around access to someone else’s time.
Ambitious, but less interested in the old definition of ambition
The workplace may be where Gen Z is most routinely misunderstood. Their preference for flexibility and boundaries is sometimes read as a lack of ambition. The evidence points to something more complicated: many are ambitious, but less convinced that ambition must look like climbing a traditional corporate ladder.
Deloitte‘s 2025 global survey of more than 23,000 Gen Z and millennial respondents found that meaningful work, financial security and well-being form a kind of three-way equation. Eighty-nine per cent of Gen Z respondents said purpose was important to job satisfaction and well-being, while 54% said meaningful work was very important when evaluating a potential employer. Yet the research also found that some young people are perfectly comfortable treating work as the means that funds a meaningful life elsewhere.
That distinction matters. For previous generations, career identity and personal identity were often closely intertwined. Gen Z seems more willing to separate the two. A worthwhile job is attractive, but so is a job that pays well, respects boundaries and leaves enough life left over at the end of the day.
Randstad’s research reinforces the sense that the career blueprint itself is changing. In its Australian findings, 47% of Gen Z respondents planned to take a career break in their twenties, compared with 39% of Millennials and 25% of Gen X. Only 38% of Australian Gen Z respondents held a single full-time job, while one in five said they would prefer a full-time role alongside a side hustle. Their early-career job tenure was also shorter than that of preceding generations.
It would be easy to label this disloyalty. But loyalty may simply be getting redefined. If an employer can no longer assume that tenure itself is a virtue, then growth, alignment, learning and quality of management become much more important reasons to stay.
Values matter, but behaviour matters more
Generational research has another recurring weakness: we often ask people what they value and then assume that tells us how they behave. It does not always.
Deloitte found that 65% of Gen Z respondents said they were willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products or services. That is significant. But a 2025 academic study examining almost half a million hotel reviews found a gap between Gen Z’s well-documented sustainability attitudes and their actual sustainability-framed electronic word-of-mouth. In that observed behaviour, Gen Z was less engaged than other generational cohorts.
This does not mean young consumers do not care about sustainability. It means values compete with price, convenience, quality and circumstance, just as they do for everyone else. In a period shaped by high living costs and economic uncertainty, stated ideals will not always win at the checkout.
The implication for brands is important. It is no longer enough to segment younger consumers using declared values and demographic shorthand. Watch what they do, where they compromise, what they pay for and what they abandon. Behaviour is usually the better signal.
The companies paying attention are bringing Gen Z inside
One of the more instructive examples comes from e.l.f. Beauty. Its success with younger consumers has not come simply from posting more often on TikTok or hiring younger-looking models. CEO Tarang Amin has spoken about relying on the expertise of the company’s largely young workforce, creating an internal culture where employees help the business understand what is moving in culture and what consumers actually want.
That approach is easy to underestimate. Organisations often study younger generations from the outside, commissioning surveys and asking senior executives to interpret the results. But when a market is moving quickly, cultural fluency can have a very short half-life. Bringing younger employees into product testing, communication and decision-making can shorten the distance between what a company assumes its customers want and what those customers are actually doing.
The lesson is not that Gen Z always knows best. No generation does. It is that the people closest to an emerging behaviour often notice changes before the organisation has language for them.
Contradiction is information
Every generation gets flattened into stereotypes when it first becomes economically important. Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials all endured their own versions of it. Gen Z is no different.
But this particular generation has come of age through an unusually dense sequence of disruptions: smartphones and social media, a pandemic, inflation and housing pressure, climate anxiety, remote work and now generative AI. It would be surprising if the result were a tidy, internally consistent set of preferences.
So perhaps the most useful thing leaders can do is stop asking for the definitive list of what Gen Z wants. There probably isn’t one. Instead, pay attention to the tensions. They want technology and worry about its consequences. They want purpose and economic security. They value flexibility and still want development. They live digitally while placing a growing premium on experiences that feel personal, tangible and human.
The temptation with generational change is to resolve those tensions into a simple label. I suspect the better strategy is to stay curious about them. Because when behaviour appears contradictory, it is often telling us that the rules underneath it are changing.
Michael McQueen is a globally recognised trend forecaster, change strategist and keynote speaker.
A bestselling author of 10 books, Michael’s latest release was named by Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant as one of the top five must-read new leadership books. He is a sought-after media commentator, with his insights regularly featured in Forbes, The Guardian, and CNN.
To find out more about Michael and his work, click here.
NOTES
Randstad. The Gen Z Workplace Blueprint: Future Focused, Fast Moving. 2025/2026. Research based on more than 11,000 workers and analysis of 126 million job postings.
Deloitte. 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Deloitte Global, 2025. Survey of 23,482 Gen Z and millennial respondents across 44 countries.
Matthew Smith. “Mythbusting Claims About Gen Z and Their Phone Habits.” YouGov, March 2, 2026. https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54114-mythbusting-claims-about-gen-z-and-their-phone-habits.
Jess Weatherbed. “Gen Z’s Love-Hate Relationship with AI.” The Verge, April 13, 2026. Reporting on Gallup research.
“The Gen Z Attitude-Behavior Gap in Sustainability-Framed eWOM: A Generational Cohort Theory Perspective.” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2025.
CNN Business. “E.l.f. Beauty’s CEO Wants to Make a Beauty Empire for Gen Z.” February 14, 2026.
