Yes, AI Will Take Your Job

Will AI take your job?

Yes, said some of our ​community​ members when I polled them on this question:

“Most of my clients are looking at ways to use AI to reduce overhead. Now, for those of us who are ahead, we can quickly adjust. For those who have yet to use AI to become more efficient in their work, they will be replaced by those who are.” – Elissa Sherrock, HR Consultant

As I ​shared recently​, the pace of AI innovation is accelerating, and this week was no exception to that.

ChatGPT launched its ​4.1 ‘coding model’​ and then the ​impressive o3 reasoning + tools model​, all on top of the recent “Memory” update and ​10 other key features​ that help any leader boost their capacity, quality, and capability.

And that’s just ChatGPT.

To Elissa’s point, imagine the difference between someone using these tools and someone who doesn’t.

Of course, AI will take your job.

The Ostrich Method Won’t Help You – AI is Here to Stay

If you see AI as a distant concern or something of an optional enhancement, you’re not just missing out on opportunities, you’re potentially endangering your role, team, and organization.

As I told a room full of CEOs last week, the cost of inaction may seems small today, but in just 6-12 months, you could be hopelessly behind.

Especially because AI adoption isn't following a linear path, it's exponential. ​ChatGPT will reach one billion users by 2025​.

The window for competitive advantage is closing rapidly. And sticking your head in the sand isn’t going to change anything here.

Any comfortable narratives we tell ourselves about AI are designed to ease our anxieties, not prepare us for reality. It's time to confront the uncomfortable truths.

As Greg from Personal Math ​points out​, "I'm sick of hearing people say, 'You won't lose your job to AI, you'll lose it to someone who uses AI.'

He reasons that this idea serves tech companies selling AI solutions, not business leaders making hard decisions.

Because while augmentation is happening, replacement is too, absorbing entire job functions in fields like ​creative​, ​customer service​, ​finance​, ​engineering​, and ​translation​.

You Versus Someone With AI

The "skill premium" that highly trained professionals command is eroding rapidly as AI democratizes specialized knowledge.

As Sangeet Paul Choudary ​explained​, "AI won't eat your job, but it will eat your ability to charge a premium for it."

He reminds us that a job is just a bundle of tasks and that technologies like AI can disrupt at least parts of any role, with significant impacts on your earning potential.

Even if a human professional produces work 30% better than AI, the machine operates 1,000 times faster. Most CFOs I know will gladly sacrifice some ‘human quality’ for a huge productivity boost.

And at an organizational level, implementing AI means creating compound benefits, since every implementation creates data that improves the next one.

As Choudary ​notes​:

"AI compounds commoditization by continuous absorption of skills. The more successful the AI is at augmentation, the more often it is used, the more data it captures to get trained, and the more effective it gets at future augmentation." – Sangeet Paul Choudary

This widens the gap between AI leaders and laggards. Again, the true cost of inaction may seem small now, but could create existential risk down the line.

The Leadership Action Plan

Jeremy Utley’s ​post​ that I linked before focuses on something more pragmatic, which is you reinventing your job before conditions have made it impossible to do so.

As Sodexo’s Head of Future of Work, ​Henrik Järleskog​, shared in our ​AI Leadership community​:

“Everyone will compete on the same field with the same tools as everyone will have access and it will be easy to use.” – Henrik Järleskog, Sodexo

He references ​WEF’s 2025 jobs report​, which highlights AI as one of the core skills of the future.

It’s critical to understand where you’ll be in 2030 and what you need to make it there successfully.

I entered some of the common roles in our community, and here’s what some future situations could look like:

• Consultants could see their role being disrupted by up to 90%. In a realistic scenario, AI would simply be supporting on learning and delivery, while in extreme disruption, consultant would operate as a Sensemaker or Ethical Architect.
• CEOs will have less to worry about execution but more on vision, relationships, and brand leadership. But in an extreme scenario, they could have their human vision as the last differentiator in a fully AI-driven world.
• Corporate VPs similarly could see most of their current work taken over by AI, even in a realistic disruption, but in extreme scenarios solely have to worry about guardianship of their company or brand and managing trust with stakeholders.

The good news?

This future isn't predetermined. But the window for action is closing fast.

Every leader should see what their role looks like in any of these scenarios, and reflect on what they can do today to ready themselves for that future.

Open up ​this GPT in ChatGPT​ and insert your role, company, and industry. (I don’t get to see these.)

What does your future look like? Feel free to share with me here!

As Utley emphasizes, "The leaders of tomorrow aren't waiting to be told to use AI—they're proactively figuring it out today and bringing others along."

As always, it’s up to you to take action… or see what happens.