“AI will take most jobs”
“AI will remove the knowledge worker”
“AI is better than humans at many tasks already”
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past two years it’s highly likely that you’d have come across these often alarmist soundbites. To a degree, some of it is true, but not all, and the nuance is key.
AI is fantastic at some tasks, but it still errs, drifts, hallucinates and, unless you prompt it properly, tells you what you want to hear. If you’ve used Large Language Models to any extent you’ll know this to be true.
But.
What did we see with the invention of the computer?, or with the arrival and proliferation of the internet?. Existing tasks were replaced by new ones, new roles were created and entire new industries spawned.
We’re seeing this play out already. The roles of AI Strategist, AI Architect and Head of AI didn't exist three years ago. They exist because the technology changed, and with it the tasks and the point in the loop where the human sits. New companies to service the changing technology landscape are appearing at breakout speed and revenue. Three years ago, who needed a router for AI models? Almost nobody outside the frontier labs. This month Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter for a reported $7bn and change, three years after it started trading and three months after a round that valued it at $1.3bn.
New technology need = new roles = change in where capital and resources are heading.
In a fast-changing economic and foundational landscape, AI is driving the transformation of legacy enterprise businesses and their processes like a change programme on steroids. But what is the future role of the humans?.
It is careless for leaders to declare humans irrelevant while every one of us still lives inside a capitalist structure that requires us to earn. Declaring the problem without proposing what replaces it is worse than careless. It is negligent.
So how can employees respond to stay relevant and continue to be valuable to employers?;
Denial. Bury your head and hope AI goes away. It isn't going to. The horse has bolted.
Theatre. Tinker with AI and look like you’re participating.
Agency. Work out what your next signature is: the thing you'll be known for once the current version of your job stops being the thing that's scarce. e.g Your Next Signature
This is where the very meta action of using AI to stay relevant in the age of AI comes into play.
Historically, training was identified, paid for and attended; you worked with your line manager and People/HR teams to fill in or grow your competencies and skills. This for the most part can still be relevant, but I’d argue it is not likely to be tailored to where you as an individual need to get to in your role or future role. So be creative instead.
Here are some of the ways in which you can leverage AI to help you grow;
set up a clean project where you can neatly contain the context around the challenge of your role
ask your LLM of choice to carry out some deep research on your current role and review research papers and articles on whether it’s deemed as at risk from AI, over what time horizon and exactly how it might change over time
then using that research, ask the LLM to identify what new roles are emerging in your space as a result of AI, what is happening at the bleeding edge within the startup space and the most AI forward Enterprises
feed the LLM your existing CV and your most up to date accomplishments, alongside that, also be open and honest about where your current blind spots are, or areas for growth
following that I’d then ask for the LLM to build you a personalised career tree, identifying clearly the different routes you could take from this point forwards
if satisfied, I’d then finally ask it to build you a career development plan to rapidly get you up to speed. Identify free online training courses, build you a set of exercises to flex those new skill
Once you’ve done all of this, you should have a much clearer view of where your career could go next. This would then be the time to craft a note (have AI assist you) to your line manager outlining how you see the role evolving into your next signature, how that will help the company and how you are taking agency to upskill yourself. Do this and you will stand out for the three behaviours employers reward most: motivation, accountability and proactivity.
I can’t say for sure whether every role will be transformed by AI; there are some that are unlikely to be touched, but most will. We can’t get away from that, and whilst all the macro political and economic discourse plays out around governance, sovereignty, capital allocation and security, the simplest thing we can do at our personal level is to take as much control of our own futures as possible.
Nobody is going to name your next signature for you, that’s your job.