AI Is Changing Work. Navigation Beats Prediction

LinkedIn Sunday, 8/9/2026URL: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timhillison_were-all-afraid-of-becoming-obsolete-but-share-7491907351776690176-Hsqd/ We’re all afraid of becoming obsolete.But nobody really knows what that means anymore.

The data doesn’t give us one clear answer.

U.S. unemployment is 4.1%.Yet employment fell by 87,000 in July, and the labor force fell by 264,000.

Then the IMF found something more interesting.

In its analysis, highly AI-exposed occupations with limited complementarity had employment levels about 6.3% lower in the relevant comparison.

For highly exposed occupations where AI worked more alongside people, the effect wasn’t statistically significant.

And new task creation was associated with higher wages.

The same technology can make some work cheaperand some people more valuable.

That changes how I think about the future of work.

Perhaps it’s not productive to predict exactly which jobs will survive.

But more important to build the skills that stay valuable as the work changes.

We need to see where value is moving.Learn what the new environment requires.Change direction before every answer arrives.

We can’t know exactly where this goes.But we can get better at navigating it.

That’s how we stop feeling breathless about the futureand start having more agency in it.What do you think matters most in shaping the future of work?

Execution Beats Theory. Every Time