(2025-02-24) Procopio These Are The Jobs Ai Will Replace

Joe Procopio: These Are the Jobs AI Will Replace. Question: Do you have a job that could be replaced by AI? OK, that was a trick question. Everyone’s job could be replaced by AI. That’s how they frightened CEOs into buying it.

Better question. How do you know if your job will be replaced by AI?

There are two kinds of salespeople in this world. One kind is people who are good at selling and the other kind is people who are Salesforce Wizards. Similarly, there are two kinds of marketing people in this world. People who are good at marketing and Hubspot Gurus.

we need to talk about the difference between expendable “knowledge workers” and irreplaceable “knowledgeable workers.”

I was one of the progenitors of early Generative AI, in 2010

used to write insightful, informative narratives from nothing but raw data.

In 2010, we weren’t going to replace journalists or writers, at least not the good ones. Our tech was going to eliminate a new breed of “data scientists,” and only the sketchy ones.

Those data scientists were “knowledge workers.” They knew how to use databases and SQL and R and Python to get insights out of the data. But it took the journalists, the “knowledgeable workers,” to make those insights make sense in context for the reader.

technical evolution has a way of calling out the rote-task knowledge workers in any industry

rote-task jobs were only being used as stepping stones to turn those “knowledge workers” into “knowledgeable workers.”

we’re only in year three, maybe four, and corporate America seems hell-bent on eliminating the jobs of both knowledge workers and knowledgeable workers and letting God sort it out.

In trying to reach maximum productivity, we just went all-in on the promise of AI and redefined productivity to meet it.

the AI bills are starting to come due

this article from a fellow Inc. writer (go team!) digging into a survey from Upwork. The upshot is 96 percent of the C-suite are expecting AI to increase productivity, while 77 percent of employees actually using the tools as they exist today actually experienced decreased productivity

chasm-like mismatch in expectations versus reality

in late 2023, I also said that AI was coming for SaaS, and everyone laughed at me again.
Well, I was both right and wrong there too.

I was wrong in assuming corporate America would respond to this technical evolution sensibly and with caution and care for its employees.

We’re not at the end of the AI hype cycle, but I believe we’re beyond peak AI hype.

So the answer, the real answer for how to become irreplaceable, is the same and as simple as it ever was.
Become a knowledgeable worker. (expert)

Be unbeatable at what you do. Let GenAI handle the rote-task drudgery like staring at Hubspot all day.

It’s not how good you are at AI. It’s how good you are at everything AI shouldn’t be doing. Which is a lot.