Will we lose our jobs to AI?
There’s a line that gets thrown around a lot lately: “You won’t lose your job to AI, you’ll lose it to someone who uses AI.”
It sounds good. It feels reassuring. But it’s wrong.
The reality is harsher, and it’s happening faster than most people want to admit.
You absolutely can lose your job to AI. Not to someone using AI, but eventually directly to AI itself.
Let’s be real: In a few years, everyone will be using AI. It’ll be baked into every tool we touch. Being “someone who knows how to use ChatGPT” won’t be a competitive advantage; it’ll be the baseline, just like knowing how to Google or send an email is today.
AI isn’t just about augmenting humans anymore. It’s about replacing parts of the workforce where the math makes sense—and CEOs, CFOs, and leadership teams are already running the numbers.
The Painful Transition Ahead
We’re entering what I call the painful decade, a brutal transition phase over the next 2 to 5 years where AI reshapes knowledge work at a pace most aren’t prepared for.
• 80% of knowledge and desk-based teams will shrink.
• 10% will grow, those who use AI to amplify profitability.
• 10% will hold steady, but only by using AI to manage increased workloads without adding headcount.
It might happen slower in some industries (enterprise is notoriously slow to change), but make no mistake – it will happen.
And the people who define their value only by outputs – code, reports, blog posts, presentations, are the ones most at risk.
Because AI is getting better at outputs every single day.
Outputs Are the Danger Zone
If you define your worth by what you create, you’re competing head-to-head with a machine that’s already faster, cheaper, and getting more accurate by the month.
Even if you’re an exceptional writer, designer, analyst, or strategist, if your entire value is based on production alone, you’re in trouble.
Why? Because even if you’re 30% better than the AI today, a CFO will happily trade a slight dip in quality for a 1,000x boost in speed and scale.
Being really good isn’t enough anymore if you’re being measured purely on deliverables.
Outcomes Are the New Job Security
The professionals who will survive and thrive aren’t the ones who write better copy or code faster.
They’re the ones who redefine their value around business outcomes, not just tasks.
Instead of focusing on the number of blog posts you write, you focus on how your work drives real leads and sales. Instead of only writing code, you focus on how your solutions drive customer retention or operational efficiency.
AI can handle outputs. Humans must own the outcomes.
The Playbook for Staying Relevant
Here’s a hard but honest playbook to start adapting now:
- Benchmark yourself against AI. Look at your highest-value outputs. Test what AI can already do. Be brutally honest. If AI is 50% as good as you today, assume it will be 80–90% as good in two years – or sooner.
- Redefine your role immediately. Don’t wait until your leadership team figures it out. Start focusing on how you drive measurable outcomes, not just deliverables.
- Continuously re-benchmark. Test every 3–6 months. AI is evolving too fast to sit still.
- Orchestrate, don’t compete. Build your own team of AI tools to take care of lower-value tasks, so you can spend your time driving higher-value outcomes.
It’s Okay to Be Worried. But It’s Not Okay to Stay in Denial.
I get it. I have kids entering the workforce right now too. I’m worried for them and excited for them. Because if you embrace this shift early, the opportunities will be massive.
But pretending AI isn’t coming for your outputs is the fastest way to get blindsided.
The work you do matters. But how you define your value matters even more.
Because AI isn’t just changing the tools we use. It’s changing what it means to be valuable in the workplace.
And the people who adapt now, who rethink their worth around outcomes, won’t just survive.
They’ll lead.