In a recent post, workplace culture enthusiast and author Bruce Daisley put it perfectly: you are not competing against AI – you are competing against someone else using AI. There is enough evidence showing that its effectiveness now exceeds that of humans in several key areas. As the value-add benchmark is shifting, how can you use AI as a copilot? 

 

 

AI is developing rapidly, and this makes some people feel uneasy. But if you think about it, AI so far has been developing slower than the human brain – and it still cannot do grade school math or generate fully operational computer code. This chart from Visual Capitalist tells us that AI skills matched human performance at the below tasks in the following years: 

 

 

 

AI is already better than humans at reading comprehension, image recognition and language understanding. Are these areas where you think you add value as a professional? Speaking for myself, I would say probably not. 

 

The FT recently reported that copywriters and graphic designers are the first to feel the pressure from AI and face a drop in both the number of jobs they get and their earnings. These two professions would traditionally have been considered highly skilled and specialised. They also have the biggest overlap with generative AI at the moment, given AI’s already excellent ability to comprehend visual and text inputs. 

 

However, Wired magazine and news outlet has outlined in their AI policy that they will never publish editorial text written or edited by AI because it is ‘prone to both errors and bias, and often produces dull, unoriginal writing’. Another firm ‘no’ in the policy is the use of AI-generated images or video because AI tools rely on the work of creators from all over the web but does not compensate them in any way. However, Wired would allow AI to suggest headlines or story ideas, recognising the benefits of faster idea generation. 

 

To amplify that point, the FT also reports that white-collar professions experience productivity gains but only in tasks requiring less skill. Importantly, AI evidently misses out on subtleties – it has a hard time drawing detailed conclusions from a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.  

 

So, there is a clear case for giving up low-value-add activities as you rethink where you add value as a professional – and AI has undoubtedly raised the bar and moved the benchmark. AI can already read and summarise content better than humans and can probably generate an excellent starting point for many types of written content. Speaking for myself, I prefer to focus on my domain expertise in pensions and insurance, which goes beyond AI’s capabilities and comprehension. 

 

 

AI is arguably a long way away from understanding non-verbal cues, body language and emotions which are integral to human communication. In this sense, salespeople, relationship managers and team managers probably feel less pressure from AI technology at present – but should already be reconsidering where they add the most value. 

 

Is it in the keeping of detailed notes during meetings? I would argue no: your time is better spent deeply understanding your colleagues and clients’ needs, which is a complex task requiring multiple qualitative and quantitative inputs, and an area where AI would likely miss important nuances. 

 

Is there value-add in preparing well for meetings? I would argue yes: it is important to know your key points and present them in a clear and memorable way every time. After all, AI is good at language comprehension, so if it does not understand you, you probably need to improve your messaging and delivery.  

 

What is AI to you – friend, enemy or frenemy? Tell us in the comments. 

 

Or you read on and reflect on: