When AI comes to your workplace it doesn’t have to be with a dramatic flourish. There don’t have to be redundancies. There don’t have to be robots marching through the door.
One tool. Then another. Then one day your work will simply look different. AI is not so much taking jobs, it is transforming them. So if you have noticed that at your workplace recently, you are not going mad.
Anywhere there is an email to be written. A document to be summarised. A spreadsheet to be analysed. That took you hours to do. That an AI can now do for you in seconds. That sounds great doesn’t it? All those hours and hours of drudgery removed from your life. The problem is, what then fills them?
When you don’t have to do the drudgery, it is assumed you will fill that time by doing more. By doing different. By being more productive. More efficient. More visionary. The problem is, that is not something everyone can do. And it is not something everyone is ready to do. But it is something that is being done to them.
This is not just a personal experience. It is being reported more and more widely, companies are creating jobs based on the things that AI can’t do. There is tension in this. For some, it is great. “Finally, I get to do what I want to do.”
For others, it is not so great. Because, if AI can do 40% of your job, what happens when it is 60%? This is a big issue that economists and researchers are trying to figure out: will AI create more jobs than it destroys? The answer is… complicated.
Of course, some jobs will be created. But they will not all be for the same people. And they will not all be created fast enough. And this is not just a tech problem. It is hitting marketing. Law. Customer service. Even healthcare.
Any job that has to do with information, is being impacted by AI. And the speed with which it is happening, is because of the speed of the technology itself. The rate of change in AI is happening faster than many companies, many employees, can keep up with. So it creates a strange situation where the tech is ready, but the people and systems are not.
Then there is the social impact. Which is not being discussed enough. Because work is not just about work. It is about structure. Identity. Routine. And when AI starts to mess with that, it starts to mess with people. The question is not just, “Will I lose my job?” but “What does my job even mean?” That is not something any software can answer.
And it is not all bad news. It doesn’t have to be. This is a moment when companies can choose how they use this technology. They can use it to squeeze even more out of workers, or they can use it to make work better. Fewer repetitive tasks. More flexibility. More creative jobs.
That future is also possible. But someone has to choose it. Because, if it is left to itself, AI will just follow the path of least resistance. And that path is always the one of efficiency, above all else. So, no, your job may not go overnight. But it is changing. Quietly. Steadily. Sometimes awkwardly. And whether that is good or bad? Well, that is still to be decided.
