AI and Your Job: What to Actually Do (Not the Scary Headlines Version)

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Hey there,

Let me tell you about two conversations I’ve had recently.

The first was with a friend who works in accounting. She told me she was terrified. Her company had just started using AI to process expense reports, and she was convinced it was only a matter of time before her whole department disappeared.

The second was with someone who works in marketing at a mid-sized company. He told me he’d quietly started using AI to do work that used to take him 4 hours in about 45 minutes. His boss thought he was just “getting better.” He asked me: “Is it wrong that I’m not telling them?”

Both conversations are about the same thing: AI and work. And they both need honest answers, not the kind you get from headlines.

This Week’s Story: AI, Your Job, and What to Actually Do

Let me start with the honest version of what we know.

Some jobs will change significantly. Not all of them.

AI is very good at certain kinds of tasks: processing large amounts of text or data, generating first drafts of written content, answering repetitive questions, classifying things into categories, recognizing patterns. If your job is heavily composed of those specific tasks, your role will likely change. Not necessarily disappear, but change.

AI is not good at: genuine relationship-building, reading a room, making judgment calls that require ethical reasoning, physical work, creative vision with original perspective, or handling things that require deep context about a specific person or organization that isn’t written down anywhere.

Most jobs have a mix of both. The people who are struggling aren’t usually those whose entire job is being automated. They’re often those who haven’t thought about which parts of their job AI can help with, and which parts they need to lean into more.

Person working at a laptop in a bright workspace

The most dangerous position is not using AI at all

Here’s something I’ve come to believe: the biggest career risk right now isn’t AI replacing you. It’s someone who uses AI well replacing you.

That marketing person I mentioned earlier? He’s producing the output of a team of two with the output hours of one. That kind of leverage doesn’t go unnoticed for long. Managers start asking: “Why does it take four people to do what he does alone?” And the answer isn’t “because he’s secretly using AI.” The answer, from where they’re sitting, becomes: “Maybe we only need two people for this.”

I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying it because the practical response to that reality is to be the person who’s using AI well, not the one who isn’t.

Back to my friend in accounting

I asked her: “What do you actually do all day that you’re worried about?”

She listed things: processing receipts, categorizing expenses, checking for policy violations, generating monthly reports, answering questions from employees about reimbursements.

Then I asked: “What do you do that requires you specifically? That requires knowing the company, the people, the history, the context?”

She thought about it. “I know that when the regional director submits expenses for golf with his ‘clients,’ those clients are usually his friends and I need to flag those carefully. I know that the new VP doesn’t understand the expense policy and needs to be handled delicately, not just emailed a rejection. I know which vendors have issues with our AP team and need a heads up before we reject something.”

None of that is in any database. None of that can be automated. And it’s arguably the most valuable thing she does.

The question to ask yourself: where is the irreplaceable you in your work?

Quick Win of the Week: Your AI Skills Audit

Here’s a practical exercise. It takes about 20 minutes and gives you a clear picture of where to focus.

Open a blank document or a piece of paper. Make two columns.

Column A: Tasks AI can help with now. List everything you do in a week that involves writing, summarizing, researching, drafting, categorizing, or answering the same questions repeatedly.

Column B: Tasks where you’re irreplaceable. List everything that requires your specific relationships, your institutional knowledge, your judgment about nuance, your physical presence, or your professional relationships with specific people.

Look at Column A. Pick one item. This week, try doing it with AI assistance and see how much faster it goes.

Look at Column B. These are your career assets. These are worth investing in, making more visible, and building further.

The goal isn’t to replace yourself with AI. It’s to free up time from Column A so you can do more of Column B, which is where you’re hardest to replace and, not coincidentally, where work tends to be more interesting.

Tool Spotlight: AI for Job Seekers

Resume and professional documents on a desk

The situation: Whether you’re actively job searching or just keeping your resume current, AI is genuinely useful here in ways that most people haven’t tried yet.

Resume tailoring: Paste your current resume into ChatGPT or Claude. Then paste the job description you’re applying to. Ask: “What’s missing from my resume that this job description emphasizes? How should I adjust my phrasing to better match what they’re looking for without being dishonest?” This doesn’t mean gaming the system. It means making sure your actual qualifications are communicated in language that matches what the hiring manager is looking for.

Interview prep: Ask AI to act as an interviewer for a specific type of role. “You’re a hiring manager for a mid-sized marketing agency. Interview me for a content manager position. Ask me the five questions you’d most want to know the answers to.” Then practice. Then ask for feedback on your answers.

Salary research: Ask AI: “What’s the typical salary range for a [job title] with [X] years of experience in [city/region]? What factors push someone toward the higher end of that range?” AI doesn’t have live salary data, so verify with sites like Glassdoor or LinkedIn Salary, but it can help you understand what variables matter.

LinkedIn profile polish: Paste your LinkedIn summary into AI and ask: “What would make this more compelling to a hiring manager in [your industry]? What am I underselling?”

All of this is free to try with ChatGPT or Claude. And it works.

Go Deeper

Want to dig deeper into this topic? Here are some related articles I’ve written:

Closing Thought

I don’t think AI is going to eliminate most jobs. But I do think it’s going to widen the gap between people who adapt and people who don’t. That’s been true of every major technology shift, from spreadsheets in the eighties to email in the nineties to smartphones in the 2010s.

The people who came out ahead each time weren’t the ones who predicted the future most accurately. They were the ones who stayed curious, tried the new tools, and figured out where the tools helped and where they still needed a human.

You’re already doing that by reading this. That’s worth something.

See you next week,

Henry
The AI Next Door

P.S. We’re getting into images next week. How AI image generators actually work, what they’re good for, what’s concerning about them, and a few genuinely useful ways to use them in your everyday life. See you Tuesday.