5.16.2025 - AI vs. your career - common themes in what the experts are saying
You don’t need to out-compete AI and robots. You need to do what they can’t. Help others do the same. And learn how to orchestrate automated agents so they achieve good outcomes.
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Top insights to glean from this issue of S3T
🎓 Welcome to the Future of Work You’re not just starting a career—you’re entering a remade economy. AI is reshaping jobs, and companies face historic uncertainty. But that means huge opportunity for those who can adapt.
🧠 Learn Fast or Fall Behind The most future-proof skill? Rapid learning and relearning. Synthesize info, make smart decisions, and prototype fast. It’s not your GPA—it’s how you grow, week by week.
🤝 Be the Human AI Can’t Be Empathy, ethics, teamwork, clear communication—these are automation-proof. The best leaders? Those who bridge humans and machines, and orchestrate both to solve complex challenges.
🧪 Build, Break, Fix, Repeat Don’t just study—build things. Learn by doing. Test systems, stress-test ideas, fix flaws. Every project is a portfolio piece—and a step toward mastery.
📊 AI UX is the New Gold Rush Bad AI experiences are everywhere. If you can design AI that actually works for humans—secure, reliable, intuitive—you’ve got a high-value skill companies desperately need.
🛠️ Support the Machines, Grow the Future Future roles aren’t just using AI—they’re enabling it. Think robot field engineers, AI workflow designers, QA for automated systems. Every smart machine needs a smarter human.
🌍 Lead the Change, Don’t Just Ride It Today’s orgs are fluid, not fixed. Leadership isn’t about hierarchy—it’s about mobilizing people across disciplines to solve problems no org chart can predict. That’s change leadership. That’s the edge.
Premium Content:
🤖 Is your team AI-ready? Investors and leaders must assess how well their people collaborate with AI to drive outcomes, manage risk, and stay competitive—before the future outpaces them.
🌊 Economic Rifts & Rising Risks The U.S. may be splitting into a “partisan economy” narrative, but data shows non-aligned companies outperform thanks to focus on outcomes, not ideology. Meanwhile, economic confidence is sinking—only 37% think the country’s on the right track.
⚖️ 4. AI Law: National vs Local Tug-of-War Congress wants a 10-year freeze on state AI laws, but critics say local insight and enforcement are essential. The smart path? Federal guardrails + empowered states = stronger, adaptive AI governance.
🎓It’s graduation season—and what a wild time to be paddling out!
Wave after wave of change. The economy is being remade in real time. AI is moving faster than we can grasp its full impact on careers, job security, and the future of work. And companies are facing more uncertainty than ever.
So I dug into the top advice being offered to the Class of 2025 (and workers in general) to find the common themes in all the advice that is being given.
Whether you're a new grad entering the workforce (Congrats BTW!), a professional mapping your career, decision-maker or investor, these themes are worth paying attention to.
TL;DR: What Future-Proof Professionals & Companies Know:
- How to learn fast
- How to work with others
- How to fix what breaks (and test/resolve issues before release)
- How to bridge gaps between AI tech and people
- How to think clearly and act ethically
Bottom line: You don’t need to out-compete AI and robots. You need to do what they can’t. Help others do the same. And learn how to orchestrate automated agents whether they are AI tools, robots, or mixed portfolios of different kinds of automation.
Top recurring themes: skills and acumen to build
While this advice came from a wide range of sources - Investors, career coaches, consulting companies, and universities - there was remarkable alignment on a few key themes:
AI User Experience - designing and delivering a reliable user experience is one of the biggest opportunity spaces for business roles of all types, including highly technical developers.
- Too many AI platforms, products, services and industries deliver abysmal user experiences, and earn the hatred of customers as a result...especially if it's not easy for the customers to switch.
- Most AI companies have not yet figured out how to reliably orchestrate the different app and cloud components that must work together to deliver a reliable and valuable user experience.
- Current AI testing process are often ineffective/incomplete. They over-rely on traditional software testing approaches that don't factor in the additional risks and issues associated with AI and analytic services.
Today's challenge is to design a user experience, then effectively test all the working components and confirm that they deliver the intended user experience even in real world conditions, when fully integrated with other required systems, protected by the required security, etc. The ability to do this and do it well is rare - and highly valuable.
Adaptability & Proactivity Your ability to pivot, and your ability to help teams pivot, will set you apart. Explore and embrace emerging sectors like AI ethics, data analytics, and interdisciplinary applications of technology. These areas are expected to offer new roles and opportunities. See The Open Palm Mindset for more about pivot power.
Continuous AI and Analytics Learning - by Doing - including from alternative education and learning paths. The rising costs of traditional education, and the increasing challenges faced by universities (reduced funding, increased administrative overhead) combined with the evolving job landscape, push more people toward online certifications, vocational training, apprenticeships in high-demand trades and other alternative learning paths.
Prioritize work opportunities that allow you to learn by doing. Beware of allowing time to pass in a company or team that is not challenging you or allowing you to grow. At the end of any 3-6 month period you want to be able to say "Here's what I improved/built/helped build, here's what it achieved, what we learned, and what we plan to do next."
Leadership skills - especially leadership that is savvy about change - shows up over and over again (why S3T focuses on Change Leadership). Being savvy about change starts with a sharp understanding of 3 changing realities of the 21st century: Economic, Tech & Organizational. Let's break these down:
- New Economic Realities: The economy is evolving. Simultaneously we're correcting our flawed understanding of how an economy works. We are learning to recognize economic distortions (limitations of market based valuations) that cause us to over-value certain activities and material goods while under-valuing more crucial work and services we can't do without.
- New Technology Realities: Emerging Tech is accelerating. Our understanding of what we can do with tools and technology is also constantly evolving. We're creating new kinds of combined technologies that require increasingly sophisticated governance. We're learning - the hard way in many cases - the difference between innovation that brings unwanted side effects vs. intentional beneficial innovation.
- New Organizational Realities: The org you lead or work for will not be a static hierarchical machine. You will be changing the machine, its structure, products and services, while operating it, in order to adapt to the new economic and tech realities. Tech feasibility is ahead of, and largely indiscernible to management science (the frameworks that guide decision-making and org design). As a result, the current structure of any org, at any given point, obstructs the orgs ability to execute on its goals, thrive or even survive. You'll have to learn to work agnostic to your org structure without burning trust and creating silos.
Today's leaders and innovators have to wrestle with new economic, tech and org realities. When we consider these new realities objectively, we realize that - to be effective - we need a different kind of leadership in the 21st century: change leadership. The ability to see opportunities, mobilize people across different silos and disciplines to come together to execute effectively and achieve wins. This kind of leadership needs to exist (and be nurtured) at all levels of the org - not just the top.
Learning Pathways
Here are concrete steps you can take, starting now:
- Mix Tech and Human Studies: Combine STEM courses with philosophy, ethics, communication, and behavioral science.
- Build Projects: Learn by doing. Join hackathons, robotics clubs, maker spaces, or simulation labs.
- Get Field Experience: Intern or shadow in real-world jobs where automation is not yet replacing humans.
- Level Up Soft Skills: Practice teamwork, engaged alert listening, teach others, present your ideas, and get feedback.
- Explore AI Tools: Learn prompt engineering, use AI to accelerate learning, and stay curious about new tools.
- Think Systemically: Study how decisions/actions/events have ripple effects in ecosystems: natural, financial, social and industry ecosystems. Systems thinking is an underrated superpower.
Sources & Notes
City University of Seattle offers a practical list of 10 most in-demand skills for 2025: Data science, AI fluency, Software dev (especially Python), Emotional Intelligence, Problem Solving, Creativity, Proactivity, Leadership, Adaptability
Cognizant's advice for Class of 2025: Continuous learning and growth, Critical thinking, Emotional intelligence, openness to new opportunities, using AI instead of seeing it as competition.
Career Coach Phoebe Gavin emphasizes being proactive: Proactively build relationships with colleagues, network to discover opportunities.
Warren Buffet's recent advice: Set yourself up for continuous learning by: 1. Surrounding yourself with smart people. 2. Doing what you enjoy - with people who also love the work and aren't in it for the money.
Foundit's Best Career Options (Data science, AI, Security, Healthcare, Robotics, FinTech, Supply Chain, UX, others) and Skills (Digital Literacy, Communication, Problem Solving, Adaptability, Continuous Learning)
David Novak Career Advice for 22 Year Olds, May 2025: Build relationships, Build trust through excellence in small things, Build your brand by knowing yourself and strengths, and using them to bring value.
Coursera's 7 high income skills to learn: Data Analysis, Software development, User Experience and others.
Embrace intentional learning says Inside Higher Ed. Reflect on what you are learning and doing and why, rather than working from a checklist mentality.
Robert Half: 5 Potential Challenges Facing Early Career Professionals - and how to overcome them.
LinkedIn's Grad Guide '25 - The jobs, industries and cities on the rise for new grads
🤿 Deeper dive for investors and leaders: Is your team AI-Compatible?
Top 5 Questions to Ask Right Now
Creating an AI-compatible career or team means learning how to collaborate with AI tools (seeing them as partners not competition) to enable a higher positive impact: effectively managing risks, and ensuring good outcomes.
But doing this effectively requires investors, entrepreneurs as well as corporate leaders to think differently about learning and performance. Here are the top 5 questions to ask - and recalibrate quickly if you don't like the answers: