How AI Is Changing the Way We Work
During a recent coaching circle session, one topic that surfaced was a comparison between the impact of AI and the old profession of the knocker-up (sometimes called knocker-upper). While there are some similarities, I believe a stronger and more useful analogy is the internet.
AI Takes a Bigger Step
The internet changed how we find information and connect with one another. AI has been changing how we use that information to get work done.
This blog explores how AI is changing the world of work, and how jobs and skills may evolve in the future. It also highlights why staying connected, to people, ideas, and technology, remains essential as work becomes increasingly shaped by AI.
The Constant Technology Evolution
Every few decades, a technology comes along that quietly reshapes how society works. The internet was one of those moments. Artificial intelligence is shaping up to be another.
While the internet connected people and information at an unprecedented scale, AI is beginning to connect capabilities, helping us think, create, decide, and execute faster than ever before. Understanding the relationship between these two technologies helps us see not just where work is today, but where it is headed.
This blog explores how AI is changing the world of work, and how jobs and skills may evolve in the future. It also highlights why staying connected, to people, ideas, and technology, remains essential as work becomes increasingly shaped by AI.
The Constant Technology Evolution
Every few decades, a technology comes along that quietly reshapes how society works. The internet was one of those moments. Artificial intelligence is shaping up to be another.
While the internet connected people and information at an unprecedented scale, AI is beginning to connect capabilities, helping us think, create, decide, and execute faster than ever before. Understanding the relationship between these two technologies helps us see not just where work is today, but where it is headed.
From Access to Intelligence: Internet vs. AI
The internet’s superpower was access. Before it, information was scarce, slow, and often locked behind physical boundaries. I still vividly remember how difficult and how slow it was to obtain information while I was in university without internet.
The internet flattened that world. Anyone with a connection was able to learn, collaborate and build much faster and easier. With time, all industries were transformed by this simple idea: information and knowledge should be reachable.
The internet flattened that world. Anyone with a connection was able to learn, collaborate and build much faster and easier. With time, all industries were transformed by this simple idea: information and knowledge should be reachable.
AI Takes a Bigger Step
AI builds on that foundation but shifts the focus.
Instead of merely giving us access to information, AI helps us use it. It summarizes, analyzes, generates ideas, writes drafts, spots patterns, and automates decisions. If the internet answered the question “Where can I find this?”, AI increasingly answers “What should I do with this?” For this blog I am writing, AI answered my question "how do you feel about the logics and flow of the writing?"
Instead of merely giving us access to information, AI helps us use it. It summarizes, analyzes, generates ideas, writes drafts, spots patterns, and automates decisions. If the internet answered the question “Where can I find this?”, AI increasingly answers “What should I do with this?” For this blog I am writing, AI answered my question "how do you feel about the logics and flow of the writing?"
In that sense, AI doesn’t replace the internet - it depends on it. AI systems are trained on vast amounts of digital information made possible by decades of online connectivity. The internet is the nervous system; AI is becoming the cognitive layer.
AI Gives Us Superpower
In day-to-day work, AI acts less like a robot replacement and more like an amplifier. It takes care of the repetitive, time-consuming, and mechanical parts of tasks, freeing humans to focus on judgment, creativity, and relationships.
Product teams use AI to brainstorm, build roadmaps, and tackle a wide range of product management tasks. In the past, conducting competitor analysis and synthesizing data to uncover patterns and insights was a massive effort. I remember hesitating to revisit the process—even when I suspected that exploring additional data could lead to better outcomes—simply because it was so time-consuming.
Today, AI gives product managers a superpower. Nearly every aspect of product management can now be accelerated, simplified, and enhanced with AI. AI doesn't just favor product work, and it gives all of us a superpower to facilitate the world of work for us.
The key shift is speed and leverage. Tasks that once took hours can now take minutes. Small teams can do what previously required large organizations. This doesn’t eliminate work, instead, it changes where effort is spent.
How the Nature of Work May Evolve
Just as the internet created new roles, social media managers, SEO specialists, remote freelancers, AI has and will even more reshape job definitions rather than simply erase them.
Future work is likely to emphasize:
Problem framing over execution: Knowing what to ask becomes more valuable than doing every step manually.
Human judgment and ethics: Deciding when, where, and how to use AI responsibly.
Creativity and originality: Standing out in a world where basic output is abundant.
Collaboration with AI: Treating AI as a teammate that can support you alongside your work.
Lifelong learning won’t be a slogan; it will be a necessity.
Why Staying Connected Matters Even More
As powerful as AI is, it does not replace human connection.
In fact, the more automated work becomes, the more valuable trust, empathy, and shared understanding will be.
In fact, the more automated work becomes, the more valuable trust, empathy, and shared understanding will be.
Staying connected, to people, communities, and ideas, ensures that technology serves human goals rather than isolating us. The internet enables that connection. AI can enhance it, but only if we remain intentional.
Disconnected individuals risk falling behind not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack access, tools, conversations, and evolving norms.
Staying connected means staying adaptable.
Lifelong connection is another necessity in work and life.
Change Management Is the Key to AI Transformation
What about the organization level?
The defining factor of a successful AI transformation isn’t the technology itself - it’s change management.
The defining factor of a successful AI transformation isn’t the technology itself - it’s change management.
A true AI transformation means fundamentally changing how people work. That requires rethinking processes, organizational structures, incentives, skills, leadership, culture, and mindset. Without these shifts, AI remains a tool; with them, it becomes a capability.
Read my next blog where I discuss "Successful AI Transformation: Turning Tools and Technology into Transformation", and also introduce my Six Coherence Framework for organization assessment and alignment.
Read my next blog where I discuss "Successful AI Transformation: Turning Tools and Technology into Transformation", and also introduce my Six Coherence Framework for organization assessment and alignment.
Summary
Both internet and AI are reshaping how we work, not by removing humans from the equation, but by redefining and strengthening what humans do best.
The real question is whether we stay curious, connected, and willing to evolve alongside it.
How have you been using the new superpower?
The real question is whether we stay curious, connected, and willing to evolve alongside it.
How have you been using the new superpower?
What is next?
Let’s connect. Let’s explore how AI is reshaping the world of work, from product roles, team support and leading roles, processes, ways of working and beyond.
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