AI Needs Us - for Now
I’ve been deep in the design and product world for decades - inside agencies, running my own consultancy, embedded with Fortune 100 clients. In recent years, everyone’s been asking the same question:
Is AI coming for our jobs?
Short answer? Yeah.
Slightly longer answer? Not yet.
Over the past few years, I’ve become obsessed with AI. I’ve advocated for and helped design AI tools with major players in financial services and healthcare. I’ve integrated custom GPTs into my own workflow. I’m currently building my own AI agent, fumbling through the dev work while AI itself helps me along.
And if there’s one thing I know, it’s this:
Tech may be is fast, but people are slow.
Literally, as I write this, my GPTs are sitting idle, waiting for me to give them something to do.
Even inside forward-leaning orgs, adoption moves at a crawl. Not because leaders don’t want to use AI, but because every new tool touches legal, compliance, security, procurement, culture, politics. You’re not just installing software. You’re reshaping how people make decisions, how data is managed, how risk is handled.
That’s the bottleneck. It’s not the tech, it’s us. (And often with good cause.)
Which brings me back to the question: Will AI take our jobs?
Product owners. Designers. Engineers. Knowledge workers of all kinds, wondering... worrying.
Yes, AI is absolutely coming for all our jobs. In fact, it's hard to imagine what job it ISN'T going to impacted. AI has started and is going to continue to eliminate the repetitive, unclear, medium-value tasks that clog up your day, your teams, your systems. That’s a big chunk of a lot of jobs. But your role - and more importantly, your value - isn’t just output. You offer more than production, or you could.
You dream of something better.
You make difficult decisions.
The next tech phase will be led by people who:
Are inspired and can articulate a clear vision
Understand their business and their customer
Make confident, strategic decisions
Know how to guide teams, especially those that include AI
That’s what me and my AI-obsessed peers are doing, now.
Not just using the tools, but pushing them.
Not just adapting, but actively creating.
And I think you can (and should), too.
Not because it’s trendy. Because this is the time.
AI still needs us to give it challenges and direction.
For now.
Envision. Lead. Build. Test.
Not to protect your job - but to define your role in whatever comes next.
I can help, reach out. I love this stuff.