AI and Your Career in 2026: The Skills That Keep You in Demand

Written By Laura Cloney

The AI Shift at Work: What’s Changing, What’s Not, and What to Do Next

Brain, AI & Computer representing the future of work.

There’s a shift happening with work right now, and if you’ve been sensing it, you’re not imagining it. AI isn’t a “future topic” anymore. It’s here, it’s accelerating, and it’s already woven into daily life. (Even my young kids will ask if something is “AI or real”). And What does this mean for the jobs we do and the careers we have built? We need to be honest and understand we don’t get to opt out of becoming AI-fluent if we want to stay competitive.

I recently listened to Yoshua Bengio one of the “godfathers of AI” on a podcast. His view of AI on the world grabbed my attention, especially hearing his point of view on work. How some jobs may not exist in the next 24 months. It was a wake-up call. Not because it’s guaranteed to unfold exactly that way, but because it forces the right question: are we adapting at the speed the work is changing?

For me, this hit especially hard. Designing jobs, filling jobs, and recruiting talent has been my world for decades. So I went looking for the data not to panic, but to get practical. Because for one I am curious what the research says and two this is happening now, not in 2035.

In 2025, 76% of SaaS companies were using or exploring AI for operations, and 92% said they planned to increase AI inside their products. That matters for 2026 because it signals what’s already in motion: the tools you use at work are becoming AI-powered whether you asked for it or not and most vendors are planning to deepen those capabilities.

Obsolescence Happens When You Don’t Evolve

Here’s the good news and the bad news at the same time: the World Economic Forum projects 92 million jobs displaced by 2030, while 170 million new roles emerge. That’s a net gain but it doesn’t automatically benefit everyone. The advantage goes to the people who evolve with the shift.

PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer (based on nearly 1 billion job postings) shows roles exposed to AI are growing. Not because they’re “safe,” but because the work inside those roles is being redesigned. PwC also reports a growing wage premium for workers with AI skills.

So What’s Actually Changing?

The most useful way to think about AI isn’t “jobs disappearing.” It’s tasks moving. As of right now, many studies estimate AI can automate roughly 20–45% of tasks in most roles. That doesn’t mean 20–45% of people are immediately replaced. It means a meaningful chunk of what you do is up for redesign. So the question isn’t whether your job will change. It’s this:

Are you the person who owns the 55–80% that remains judgment, relationships, strategy, decisions or are you mostly doing the part that’s easiest to automate?

Ai, workforce , futuristic

What This Looks Like in the Real World (Industry Snapshots)

These aren’t abstract predictions. You can already see the direction of travel inside companies: fewer “pure execution” roles, more “decision + oversight + exception handling” roles.

Healthcare: From Admin Burden to Patient Care

A lot of routine documentation work is increasingly automated or AI-supported. But healthcare isn’t “cutting its way to success” it’s trying to solve for a bigger industry problem: Burnout. AI is being deployed to reduce administrative load and help clinicians spend more time on patient care.

How roles shift:

  • Coders → documentation specialists for complex cases

  • Billing teams → revenue integrity / audit roles

  • Prior auth processors → exception and escalation specialists

  • Clinicians → more patient time, less note time

The shift: fewer pure admin roles, more hybrid roles that require domain knowledge plus the ability to validate AI output.

Technology: Execution Gets Cheaper, Judgment Gets Pricier

The story isn’t “AI killed engineering.” It’s that routine execution is being compressed. The middle changes first: generalist junior work becomes harder to justify unless it ladders quickly into higher-value thinking.

How roles shift:

  • Junior devs → reviewers, testers, and AI-output validators

  • QA → test strategy and risk-based coverage

  • Technical writing → product understanding + customer clarity

The shift: less “do the task,” more “design the system, validate the output, manage risk.”

Retail: From Transactions to Experience

Self-checkout and automation reduce transaction-heavy work. But retailers still need people—just in different ways.

How roles shift:

  • Cashiers → customer experience and problem resolution

  • Stockers → inventory support using demand signals

  • Loss prevention → complex case handling

The shift: fewer “warm body” roles, more roles that require judgment and customer skill (and basic data literacy).

Manufacturing: Automation + A Talent Shortage

Manufacturing is one of the biggest areas for task automation, especially in assembly, quality control, and maintenance diagnostics. At the same time, there’s a shortage of skilled technicians.

How roles shift:

  • Line workers → equipment supervisors and maintenance techs

  • QC → exception handling and decision roles

  • Maintenance → expands with predictive maintenance needs

The shift: fewer repetitive tasks, more technical oversight and troubleshooting.

Financial Services: Speed + Oversight

Banking and lending are seeing major gains in speed through automation. But the more automated the process, the more important oversight becomes—risk, compliance, exceptions, and customer trust.

How roles shift:

  • Junior processors → customer and relationship roles

  • Loan officers → decision support + exception strategy

  • Tellers → experience + issue resolution

The shift: fewer entry-level processing roles, more judgment-based roles.

women sitting in a window looking at a forest

The Human Element: Don’t Break the Pipeline

One more thing we can’t ignore: this shift hits early-career workers first. When entry-level tasks get automated, the “training ground” disappears unless leaders intentionally rebuild it.I believe we have a responsibility here. For those of us who are mid-career or senior, advocate for the intern, the new grad, or the early career hire: Mentor harder, explain how you think, and create pathways for juniors to build judgment not just execute tasks. Healthy teams (and healthy industries) depend on it.

The Critical Skills You Need Right Now

This is the part that matters most. These skills put you on the evolving side, not the obsolete side.

  1. AI Literacy (Domain-Specific, Not Technical) You don’t need to code. You DO need to understand what AI can and can’t do in your field and how to use it responsibly. The tools, the impact all of it.

  2. Judgment Over Execution. AI can produce output. Humans are still responsible for deciding if it’s right, safe, ethical, and useful.

  3. Curiosity + Experimentation. The landscape changes monthly. The people who test, iterate, and learn in public move faster.

  4. Comfort With Ambiguity. Job descriptions are becoming living documents. The skill is figuring it out while it’s changing.

  5. Relationship + Context Skills. Trust, influence, mentoring, communication, AI can support this, but it can’t replace it and shouldn’t in my opinion.

  6. Continuous Learning (Real Learning) Not passive content. Real reps: try, fail, adjust, repeat.

What You Can Do This Month + This Quarter

This month: Pick one AI tool relevant to your work. Use it for real tasks five days in a row. Track what it speeds up, what it gets wrong, and where your judgment matters.

This quarter: Map your job into tasks. Identify what’s automatable and what’s “human leverage.” Then actively shift your time toward the leverage work and automate/delegate the rest.

The Bottom Line: Evolution or Obsolescence

Take the time to pay attention to the impact of AI. How it’s impacting your role and the future of your industry. Listen to the experts like Bengio, so that we all understand where this is going. Some work will disappear faster than people expect. Some roles will shrink. Some will transform. And pretending your 2020 skill set will protect you in 2026 is a risky bet.

But there’s also a real upside: if you build AI fluency and move your value up the stack—from execution to judgment you don’t just stay relevant. You become harder to replace.

If you want help translating this shift into a plan for your industry and role, follow along here for practical guidance and find additional resources on the “For Professionals” page of tthis website.

Sources

Laura Cloney

Founder - LCTalentLab

https://www.LCTalentLab.com
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