AI Isn't Taking Your Job. It's Taking Your To-Do List.

I remember sitting in a meeting about twenty years ago when someone confidently declared that CRM would be the death of the salesperson.

Apparently, once every customer interaction was logged and every opportunity tracked, we'd no longer need people building relationships. Software would do all that for us.

It was a wonderfully confident prediction - It was also gloriously wrong.

CRM didn't kill sales - It exposed poor salespeople! The good ones simply became even more valuable.

I've been thinking about that a lot recently because everywhere I turn someone is telling me AI is coming for my job.

Maybe…

Then again, twenty years ago it was CRM. Before that it was the internet. Then outsourcing.

Then automation.

Every generation gets its own version of "this changes everything."

They're usually right. Just not in the way they imagine.

I stumbled back across Clayton Christensen recently. His theory of disruptive innovation has been rattling around in my head ever since. His argument wasn't that disruption destroys value…

- IT MOVES IT! -

That one sentence explains AI better than most of the breathless headlines I've read.

For years we've been paid for what we know. Today, knowing things is becoming cheap.

That doesn't make expertise worthless. It simply means knowledge is no longer the scarce resource - Judgement is!

So perhaps we're asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking whether AI will replace us, maybe we should be asking...

What part of what I do has just become ordinary?

Because if your value comes from producing something predictable, AI is going to get very good at your job - Probably better than you…

But clients don't remember the person who built the prettiest spreadsheet, they remember the person who solved the problem, the person/company who “who removed the friction!”

Nobody ever bought because your PowerPoint had beautiful animations.

They bought because they trusted your judgement.

That's the bit AI still struggles with.

It can't read a room - It can't spot the one person in the meeting who looks happy but has already decided to say no - It can't tell when the right commercial decision isn't the obvious one - And it definitely can't survive office politics.

(Although, in fairness, neither can some executives.)

That's why I think we're worrying about the wrong thing.

AI isn't making humans less valuable; it's making routine work less valuable.

There's a difference.

So yes, I'm using AI.

Every day.

Why wouldn't I?

If it saves me two hours writing the first draft of a report, that's two more hours I can spend talking to clients, solving problems or, if I'm honest, staring out of the window pretending I'm deep in thought while actually wondering when Metallica will release their next album...

Technology has always replaced tasks, very rarely has it replaced people.

It simply changes what people are valuable for.

Christensen understood that years ago.

We're only just catching up.

So no, I don't think AI is taking your job, I think it's taking your to-do list.

And that's only bad news if your to-do list was your greatest contribution.

One last thought...

If AI ever learns how to read a room, spot the real decision-maker within five minutes, navigate office politics, and make a decent cup of tea...

...I'll start updating my CV!!!

Comments welcomed as always!

MC