How can I know when AI will impact me?
Soon your job will look very different and maybe you need to make a change whether you like it or not.
In our first three episodes of Stuck, one theme stood out: the hardest part of change isn’t the leap itself—it’s figuring out whether you might be stuck, and not realize it.
This week’s newsletter hones in on a major external factor, AI, and covers:
AI disruption in corporate settings
The change management issues that will buy you time
The self-assessment questions to identify the risks to you
Four actionable tactics to get you started.
But let’s start with a quick sneak peek of Episode 1: “Are you stuck, or just impatient” which is released Tuesday 21 January.
Sneak peek: Dr. Christina Villarreal, Executive Coach (OpenAI, Slack, Apple, a16z)
Hello, my robotic corporate overlords
Right now, there's no bigger catalyst for change than AI. Some see it as an exciting opportunity to work smarter. Others view it as an existential threat. I see it as a reality and believe many of us are still processing our denial. Irrespective of what you believe, if you're wondering whether your role has a future, you're not alone.
AI isn't coming—it's here. And most of us don’t really know how to prepare.
From my conversations with AI founders and my experience building 213Studios, I've concluded: AI isn't coming—it's here. And most of us don’t know how to prepare.
Three very human patterns will buy some time
As a former programme manager leading major organizational transformations, I've witnessed the same change management patterns play out repeatedly. While these patterns can be frustrating for PMs, they’ll probably also give us some breathing room to adapt ourselves. Here’s the themes:
Fear Comes First: Most employees focus intensely on potential job losses rather than seeing how new technology could make their work easier. This initial resistance typically slows adoption.
Implementation Drags: Even when leadership is eager to change, organizations move slowly. Cloud computing, despite its clear benefits, took over a decade to become mainstream - mostly stuck in endless security reviews.
Jobs Transform, Not Disappear: Rather than wholesale replacement, new technologies tend to redistribute work. Routine tasks get automated while new opportunities emerge in strategy and decision-making. This means teams, roles and workflows will need to be re-engineered.
Plus nothing happens fast in a big company. Steering Committees need to be formed, internal politicking need to resolve itself, headcount budgets need to be reallocated to IT etc etc. So what can you do in the meantime?
What You Can Do Today
Let’s start with a simple risk assessment to help you learn if you need a plan to future-proof your career.
Will AI significantly impact your target industry? (Think automation, revenue impacts, customer competition)
Where is your industry heading, not where it is today?
How can your existing skills connect to emerging opportunities?
Perhaps a reasonable goal is to stay one step ahead of your organization's adoption curve.
Four concrete steps
If AI's impact on your career keeps you up at night, here are four concrete steps you can take this week:
Map Your Work: Take 30 minutes to list your regular tasks. Which ones are repetitive or rules-based? These are likely to be automated first. On the flip side, which require uniquely human skills like creativity or judgment? These are your likely future-proof strengths.
Become an AI Student: Pick one AI tool relevant to your industry and spend an hour exploring it. Don't aim for mastery - just understand its basic capabilities and limitations. Even ChatGPT's free version can teach you a lot about AI's current state
Follow the Money: Look up your industry's biggest players. What are they saying about AI in their earnings calls and press releases? Companies aren’t being quiet - Klarna’s have openly touted their AI Assistant that manages approximately two-thirds of customer service interactions.
Start Small: Find one repetitive task in your current role that AI could help with. Experiment with using AI as your assistant rather than viewing it as your replacement.
Remember: most organizations are still figuring out how to implement AI effectively. So you don't need to transform overnight, but you do need to transform.
Still not sure?
Let us help:
Share your anxieties with us at stuck@213studios.com. We’re in this together, and your voice note may make a big difference to someone suffering in silence.
Comment below if you have specific roles or industries you’d like us to discuss on the show. We have experts on software engineering, legal and various finance areas in our network who’d be happy to help demystify what’s coming.
If you want some AI tool recommendations, comment below and we’ll make sure you’ve got at least one thing to learn.
Join the community and subscribe to the show on Youtube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify