RAISE US Launches $1B AI Worker Retraining Fund

The companies building the AI systems that are eliminating jobs are now funding the largest private-sector effort to retrain the workers being displaced. Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb launched RAISE US on June 25, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has already secured more than $500 million toward a $1 billion goal, according to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Who Is Behind It

RAISE US is backed by an unusual coalition. OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Amazon serve as anchor partners alongside Bank of America, IBM, Mastercard, AMD, Eli Lilly, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Raimondo will serve as CEO, with Eric Beane appointed President and COO and Janet Foutty serving as President of Corporate Partnerships, EdTech Innovation Hub reported.

The bipartisan framing is deliberate. Raimondo, a Democrat who served as Rhode Island's governor before joining the Biden administration, is partnered with Holcomb, a two-term Republican governor from Indiana. The structure is designed to operate across political lines at a moment when AI policy remains deeply polarized.

Raimondo stated that the country "does not yet have a people strategy" and cannot lead without one. She described RAISE US as the first initiative where competitors in the tech industry have set aside their competition to collectively address the workforce implications of their products, StateScoop reported.

The Scale of the Problem

The initiative arrives against a stark backdrop. Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported that AI-attributed job cuts reached 87,714 through May 2026, the highest total since the firm began tracking the category in 2023, TechTimes reported. AI was the leading reason cited for layoffs for the third consecutive month in May, accounting for 40 percent of all job eliminations that month.

The technology sector alone shed 123,653 jobs in the first five months of 2026, a 66 percent increase from the same period in 2025. These numbers give RAISE US an urgency that distinguishes it from earlier, more aspirational workforce initiatives.

A separate Anthropic Economic Index Survey found that roughly half of 9,700 users surveyed reported AI can already handle 50 percent or more of their work tasks. Just over 35 percent expected AI to take over most or nearly all of their tasks within 12 months, a share Anthropic described as "strikingly uniform" across experience levels, locations, and professions.

What RAISE US Will Do

The organization will use private and philanthropic capital to design and pilot corporate incentives to retrain workers, new approaches to support people through job transitions, and training models tied to changing employer demand. Initial state partnerships have been agreed in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah.

The first projects will involve governors, employers, education providers, workforce organizations, and researchers. Success will be measured by whether workers land and keep good jobs, not by the number of training programs launched or certificates issued.

The approach represents a meaningful shift in how AI's economic impact is being addressed. Rather than relying on government funding or individual company programs, RAISE US aggregates private capital at scale and ties it to measurable employment outcomes.

The Political Context

RAISE US launches at a time when federal AI regulation remains fragmented. The Trump administration has taken a largely hands-off approach to AI oversight while simultaneously issuing executive orders on AI cybersecurity and national security. State-level efforts, including Colorado's AI Act and California's frontier model rules, have created a patchwork of requirements without a unified national framework for AI governance.

The nonprofit model allows RAISE US to operate outside the legislative process while still partnering with state governments. Whether the initiative can deliver measurable results before AI-driven job displacement accelerates further will determine its significance.

What to Watch

The first indicator will be whether the pilot programs in the four initial states produce replicable models. The second will be whether RAISE US can maintain its bipartisan coalition as AI policy becomes a more prominent campaign issue. The third, and most important, will be whether workers who go through RAISE US programs actually secure and retain jobs at comparable or higher compensation, according to AIM Media House.

For companies deploying AI tools, RAISE US creates both a benchmark and a potential resource. The initiative's outcome data, once available, will offer the first large-scale evidence on what retraining approaches actually work in an AI-transformed labor market.