AI doesn't destroy work, it moves it

The first ATM opened in London in 1967. Back then everyone thought bank tellers would lose their jobs. That’s not what happened.

Kodak didn’t remove the darkroom, it scaled it

In 1888 Kodak’s slogan was: “You press the button, we do the rest.” People took their photos and mailed the camera to the factory. Eastman didn’t get rid of developing. He moved it into a huge factory in Rochester and made it much bigger and much more invisible. The customer was left with a single button, and behind it sat a giant darkroom.

The screen disappears for you. But someone is doing that work in the back, at a much bigger scale.

Tellers and gas station attendants

In the US, after banks started using ATMs, the number of tellers didn’t drop, it went up. ATMs made opening a branch cheaper, so more branches opened in more places. People who used to count cash became people who listen to customers and solve their problems. The machine started doing the machine’s work.

Teller numbers really have fallen in recent years, but that took 50-60 years, and what actually drove it down was online banking. Gas station attendants have almost disappeared in Europe and the US, yet in Turkey they’re still there. Change doesn’t happen at the same speed everywhere. Overall, no job really vanishes. What it consists of changes.

Adding agents on top of mediocrity

Gartner predicts that by 2028 AI agents will outnumber sellers 10 to 1, yet fewer than 40% of sellers will say they made them more productive. Because AI doesn’t solve anything on its own. If your system runs through 12 tabs and 20 separate data entry points, adding an agent on top just multiplies the chaos. Infrastructure first, a clear frame that fits on one or two A4 pages first. Set a thermostat to 30 degrees and it will keep the house at 30, even if that isn’t what you actually wanted. In the new era, being able to say clearly what you want will be one of the biggest advantages.

Diploma, project, working product

A viewer wrote to me: new graduates can’t find jobs, nobody is training new seniors. Ten years ago a diploma was enough to get into this industry. Five years ago you needed projects and experience. Today you need to put something that actually works out into the world.

We sell our clients peace of mind. We move the chaos to our side, into the darkroom, and the client sees a system that just works. That work doesn’t disappear.

The question

Would you leave a piece of software earning 100 or 200 thousand dollars to an AI with no one in control? Or would you put a person on top of it, someone who can step in and shepherd it? Screens will keep disappearing. The real question is: which side will you be on?