How AI is changing the role of knowledge-workers
Image Unsplash: Vadim Bogulov
HOW WILL AI CHANGE THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE-BASED WORK?
From my perspective, I observe three significant trends. My line of work influences my views, but these are the overarching shifts that I believe will profoundly impact the world and are essential to understand.
1. The role of “coders” is disappearing as everyone becomes a developer:
Writing code has always been just a part of the development process, and it’s becoming evident that the developer’s role is changing. Coding is part of it, but with AI agents emerging that can do much of the work as well or better – and, importantly, faster – it becomes crucial for developers who want to remain relevant in the job market in the upcoming months to learn how to use AI tools to augment their whole workflow. We already see AI solutions with the potential to change the processes of entire tech departments where five developers can do the work of fifty. The job of a future developer (and by future, I don’t mean five years from now; we are in the middle of the shift already) will be akin to an architect or conductor: drawing up “frames,” setting “pace” and “tone,” and guiding through writing good technical specifications, conducting reviews, and setting up complex, scalable architecture, and structure.
2. This reverses the pyramid in terms of a knowledge-workers mission:
The same happens for other knowledge professions, such as PR consultants, filmmakers, photographers, journalists, etc. Our role as humans becomes acting like architects and conductors. On the stage, we have various AI agents who are “cast” and trained to play their roles or instruments at the right time and in the right way, and we need to learn to work with them fluently.
3. Giants face real competition:
Companies that have spent millions on development will face stiff competition from new startups with AI-savvy founders doing the same thing with a fraction of the resources. Startups often get asked if market leaders can just copy them. Large corporations’ shareholders should instead pose this question: Couldn’t a startup do this cheaper, faster, and better tomorrow? Companies like Slack and Zoom and various expensive legacy business systems CRMs seem most vulnerable here.
Next step - proactive AI: it’s no secret that we are working on the world’s first pro-active PR agents, and we will soon be able to release news on the progress in the area. The breakthrough is that we are talking about more than generative AI that reactively creates content based on instruction but proactive, and strategic AI that enables humans to get new ideas drafted based on analyzing trends and discovering patterns that would requirce many hours to see and a lot of timing to be able to catch. This means the human role shifts from being an architect and conductor to more of a director - the one acting as a hub and holding together drama.
We are not alone in building proactive AI in this way, but we are unique within our space. A lot is happening in other areas that are moving in the same direction, and proactive AI combined with robotics is the biggest tech revolution since pen and paper.