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The Work Isn’t Disappearing… It’s Moving Up The Stack

With every passing week, my feelings on AI shift… dramatically.

Perhaps the biggest shift in my thinking (and actions) happened after my conversation with Avinash Kaushik on this week’s episode of Thinking With Mitch Joel.
It’s not the first time that this has happened.
I rely on Avinash and his thinking because he occupies some rarified air.
Along with big brains and skills that scale both marketing and technology… and a real deep bench on everything from analytics to consumer behavior, he’s a rare marketing bird because he’s worked clients-side (Intuit, Kate Spade, Coach), he’s worked agency-side (Croud) and he spent a boat-load of time at Google in the dynamic moments of media transformation.
Few have this perspective… truly from the inside and from the “doing” not just the thinking.
And he’s “in it”… living in Silicon Valley where the dreams of tomorrow seem like reality today (…maybe).

So…when it comes to AI, this is where Avinash lands: we are not replaceable… but our work is moving up the stack.

And, if you think that’s just hyperbole, I’d recommend you read his article: Analyst 2028: S.H.I.F.T For Relevance.
We need to get past this growing anxiety that AI is coming for our jobs.
That it’s replacing analysts… marketers… developers… knowledge workers.
That the work is disappearing… it’s not.

It’s moving… up the stack.

And that’s a very different challenge.
Because for years… maybe decades… we built entire careers around doing the work.
Pulling the data… building the report… writing the code… launching the campaign… optimizing the system.
We got very good at it.
We built teams around it.
We created new job descriptions… departments… entire industries around it.
And now… much of that work can be done by AI.

Not perfectly… not completely… but enough to change the equation.

Right now, some see something much grander… many are just peeking through the keyhole.
Avinash said it best: It’s not that AI will eliminate the role… it will eliminate the current version of the role.
And that’s where things get interesting.
Because if your value is tied to executing the task and the task can be automated…
Then what, exactly, is your job?
Maybe… just maybe… the path is…
From doing… to deciding.
From executing… to questioning.
From building… to understanding what’s worth building.

It’s a non-subtle shift… it’s substantive.

As Marshall Goldsmith said: What got you here won’t get you there.
And here’s where it gets even more real…
Most organizations aren’t structured for this.
They’re structured around tasks.
Roles… functions… outputs.
Not judgment… ambiguity… or empowered decision-making.

So what happens?

We try to use AI to do the same work…
Instead of defining what the new work actually is.
And that’s where I’m starting to see a lot of companies getting stuck.
AI doesn’t just change efficiency… it brings with it new expectations.

If the machine can do the tasks, then the value shifts to the human who knows what to do with it.

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Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.