According to the article, AI models ChatGPT and Perplexity were asked if the US middle class will disappear. ChatGPT said the middle class is not likely to disappear altogether, but the version many people grew up expecting “is eroding,” describing it as a split or fracture with a smaller, more secure upper middle class and a larger, more stressed “working middle.” Perplexity agreed it is “changing shape,” suggesting a “hollowing out” where fewer households sit in the middle and more are in lower and higher income tiers. ChatGPT explained that the middle class used to afford predictable pay, employer health insurance, affordable housing relative to income, and pensions. Perplexity added it used to afford a college education that was not “ruinous,” one decent car, child care, and modest vacations. Perplexity cited that the share of adults in middle-income households has fallen and that the middle class controls “a smaller share of national income” than in 1970. ChatGPT cited “structural shifts” like globalization, automation, and loss of manufacturing jobs, noting housing eats 30% to 50% of take-home pay, healthcare costs are unpredictable, retirement is self-funded, job security is thinner, and economic “shocks” stack up.