TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett tells Florida A&M graduates to adapt to AI-driven labor market shifts through continuous learning, visible leadership, and extending opportunity to others.

Duckett, CEO of the $47 billion retirement services giant TIAA and one of only four Black women to helm a Fortune 500 company, delivered commencement remarks on May 1 at Florida A&M University's class of 2026, offering three concrete pieces of advice rather than typical platitudes.

Entry-level job postings made up just 38.6% of all postings in March, down from 44% in 2023, while year-over-year clicks per job posting jumped from 10% to 21.7%, according to ZipRecruiter's annual Graduate Report. Goldman Sachs economists estimate AI is cutting roughly 16,000 U.S. jobs a month, with Gen Z hit hardest because they are concentrated in routine white-collar roles AI automates first.

Duckett's three rules: (1) keep learning because the 'shelf life' of skills has 'never been shorter' due to AI, while judgment and integrity remain valuable; (2) lean in rather than shrink back—she chose to make her presence as the first woman CEO in TIAA's more than 100-year history a form of progress; (3) build a bigger table by extending success to others rather than hoarding it, framed within FAMU's tradition as a historically Black university founded in 1887.