Your Career Is Safe
Earlier this year, it got me.
I work in the education space where information, knowledge, and learning are central.
So, when almost every piece of information can be found, interpreted, and dispersed through an AI Agent, I had a shaky moment.
"Oh crap, my entire industry is knackered. My business is doomed."
Privately, I moaned, got scatty, whinged, and generally freaked out in empty rooms, to my nearest and dearest, and most deafeningly, in my mind.
Then I realised an important piece of the puzzle - information is not what I do. And most of what I do cannot be done by a robot, now, or for a long time to come.
I slept with a smile on my face that night.
Who You Should NOT Listen To
Steven Bartlett and his impressive guests have a lot to answer for.
The tech bros do not live in the same world as the majority of us. When a former Google Exec talks about AI taking over the planet's decision-making, there may be some truth to this, but it won't be happening anytime soon.
I sat in a session presented by Futurist Dave Wilde, where he put forward the reality of the Autonomous Revolution. It is upon us, but it will be slower and more expensive than most anticipate.
Tech progress will not go exponential.
In short, there isn't enough budget or resources on our planet to fuel explosive development.
The brutal truth is that human capability is lightyears ahead of a flawed, super-expensive AI setup trying to mimic you.
Any high-profile podcaster is more likely to be focused on their ad revenue than they are on the reality of your business, the problems it needs to solve, and how outrageously skillful you are to solve those problems.
You're more valuable than you think (remember that).
Who You SHOULD Listen To
Well, me, of course! Nah, maybe just a little bit.
Paying attention to some of the studies on AI in the real world is eye-opening. OpenAI's own study on its models performing real-world tasks tells a lot. (Measuring the performance of our models on real-world tasks, Sept 25)
In short, the various AI Agents had a 96% failure rate.
Since then, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford have run similar studies and the 'reality gap', as it is known, continues to remain at approximately 95% with the latest models.
Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise agent projects will be cancelled directly due to exploding costs, unavoidable complexity, and weak governance.
In summary, the most credible independent experts are telling us these agents are a joke compared to you.
You are cleverer, cheaper, simpler (in the best possible way), and you are reliable compared to tech.
What You Should Focus On
Every week I have 20-30 conversations with Senior Leaders doing real work and navigating all sorts of business, political, market, and human challenges.
No AI Agent is getting close to being able to deal with any of them autonomously.
So, what can you focus on that is going to help you?
Focus on solving problems. Focus on being useful to someone. Focus on connecting the dots.
Kevin Kelly, the famous Futurist said, "Don't try to follow your passion. Instead, master a skill that is useful to others."
Cal Newport calls it the Craftsman Mindset - a state of building rare skills.
Barack Obama puts it simply, "Just learn how to get stuff done."
This is why I love leadership and strategy workshops. It surfaces the hundreds of problems leaders dearly need to solve on behalf of their business. Within a few hours we can define 3-4 years of high-value work a leader can create and drive to make significant impact for their business and clients or stakeholders.
If you are anxious about losing your job to tech, don't be.
Your experience, ability to work with people, and to solve problems are far superior to anything living in a microchip. If in doubt, just be useful.
