Transparency label:human only
The message I am getting loud and clear is that there will be two groups of people: those who delay applying AI for whatever reasons, and those who put it to practical use and ride the wave of its evolution. The former will find themelves left behind, unable to catch up, and out of work. The latter will be valuable and sought after.
The wave is now at the stage of agents; there seems little doubt that these will be operating widely within a year. It’s useful to know how to create and orchestrate them. It’s doubly useful if you understand business well enough to know where, when and how to deploy them. It’s triply useful if you have the understanding and skills to engineer the business information (on which agent success depends) in such a way that it is suitable for use by AIs whilst also being suitable for people.
Alongside that, it is essential to keep some friction in what people do. In helping me prepare this project brief for a small recruitment agency, my AI assistant went straight to the hosted solution. I directed it down the path of demonstration, piloting, and only then a fully engineered solution because I learnt that approach in my previous experience. The people who build enough friction into their use of AI so that they are always learning, these are the people who will continue to have value; others will simply become replaceable by agents.