Your Next Job Depends on AI Skills–Are You Ready
How to Stay Employable in a $15.7 Trillion AI Market
Back in June 2023 I wrote an article with the widely quoted headline “No, AI Won’t Take Your Job, But Someone Who’s An Expert at Using AI Might.” Fast forward to 2025 and it’s become obvious that AI definitely will take many jobs–and that companies plan to hire talent with specific AI skills. You need to plan your career–and your learning about AI–accordingly.
My use of AI as a very smart assistant saves me at least an hour or two every single day. Yet, the majority of marketers are far behind for a variety of reasons demonstrated in recent studies and books.
There Will Be Pain
Mark Schaefer, whose extraordinary new book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, says “A thesis of the new book is that humans will continue to thrive in the AI marketing world because we can uniquely bring humans together to create awe. No bot can do that.”
“I think we are in a sorting out period,” Schaefer says. “Automation will definitely dominate. AI is great at detecting patterns, responding to patterns, organizing patterns, so that work will eventually move to AI. It is going to be painful to lose these jobs, and psychologically, politically, and legally, there are barriers to progress.”
Clearly, the AI market is huge! A PWC Research Report notes that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, more than the current output of China and India combined! Of this, $6.6 trillion is likely to come from increased productivity. This could mean more creative roles, expansions into new markets, and better work-life balance through automation of mundane tasks.
Why Only 4% of Jobs Are Deeply AI-Driven—And What That Means for You
Several studies are looking at how and where AI is being adopted in business and by whom. Last week Anthropic, creator of Claude.ai, launched the Anthropic Economic Index, an initiative aimed at understanding AI’s effects on labor markets and the economy over time. Clearly, change in AI platforms is happening at breakneck speed, but companies’ adoption is still surprisingly slow.
The Index’s initial report provides first-of-its-kind data and analysis based on millions of anonymized conversations on Claude.ai, revealing the clearest picture yet of how AI is being incorporated into real-world tasks across the modern economy.
Anthropic’s analysis found that very few occupations currently see AI use across most of their associated tasks: only approximately four percent of jobs used AI for at least 75 percent of tasks.
However, Anthropic found, more moderate use of AI is much more widespread: roughly 36% of jobs had some use of AI for at least 25% of their tasks. The report did not find any jobs being entirely automated with AI. Instead, AI was diffused across the many tasks in the economy, having stronger impacts for some groups of tasks than others.
AI Is Moving at Breakneck Speed. Are You?
“We are quickly moving into a world where AI can automate 10-30% of high cognitive tasks of jobs that pay >$100,000/year. This is work that software engineers, lawyers and paralegals, researchers, financial analysts, and others do, according to Paul Baier, CEO of GAI Insights, a leading GenAI analyst firm, with a daily AI News briefing. “The Anthropic Economic Index is an important set of data showing this change. We can’t slow down this change, but investors and AI leaders can use data like this to understand where the early sets of adoption are.”
Some corporate hesitation is possibly tied to issues like bias in AI models, data privacy and copyright issues and how to achieve ethical AI use. Pending legislation that may affect corporate adoption. Organizations need to invest in creating robust internal AI training programs and policies.”
A new Gartner Report reveals that more than 26% of marketing organizations have little or no Generative AI adoption for marketing campaigns. “The most successful marketing organizations are leading the way when it comes to GenAI adoption,” said Greg Carlucci, Senior Director Analyst in the Gartner Marketing Practice. “They’re leveraging AI for tasks such as content creation, campaign planning and strategy development in order to optimize campaigns and drive their organization forward.”
The Must-Have AI Skills And How To Get Them
We are in the very earliest stages of The Fourth Industrial Revolution led by Generative AI. Worries that humans will no longer need to be part of the marketing mix, for example, are largely overblown. But adding AI skills is crucial to your future career success.
Among the top skill sets employees need in an AI-driven world include prompt engineering, AI ethics, and data analysis. There are multiple free courses online. Google offers several free AI courses and certifications, including the Introduction to Generative AI course, the Generative AI Fundamentals skill badge, and the Generative AI for Educators course. Microsoft also offers free courses on in-demand AI skills, as does IBM.
It could hardly be more clear that now is the time to learn more about AI and how you can apply it to your work. I can help you get up to speed in individual or group sessions for brands, agencies, nonprofits, authors and entrepreneurs.
AI Could Create 170 Million New Jobs Globally by 2030
Despite The World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025, finding that 40 percent of companies plan workforce reductions because of AI automation, there’s some good news. The study notes that AI could create 170 million new jobs globally while eliminating 92 million positions, resulting in a net increase of 78 million jobs by 2030. ” Half of employers plan to reorient their business in response to AI,” writes the WEF in the report.
Barriers to learning AI are few
It is crucial to stay curious and always be learning how you can use AI effectively in your work. By keeping up to date with the latest news and research, you can make informed decisions about how to use AI in your life and work. Sadly, otherwise, you may earn a new title: “unemployed.”
Barriers to learning are few and many AI platforms have free trials. As Ethan Mollick, Associate Professor at The Wharton School and Author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI notes “ChatGPT now has 400M weekly active users, about 5% of the planet. I think it is under-appreciated that AI is one of the most equitably available advanced technologies, which means people in most countries can all access the same advanced models as anyone in the biggest companies in the US.
Time To Get Onboard
For businesses and professionals, these examples highlight the competitive advantage of investing in AI literacy—whether that’s through formal internal programs, partnerships with educational institutions, or smaller-scale initiatives to bring employees up to speed.
Companies like AXA, DHL, and Accenture, IBM, JP Morgan, Accenture, Shell and KFC are heavily investing in AI training for their staff, focusing on logistics, technology, and employee development – indicating a robust commitment to technology. These forward-looking companies at the forefront of AI research and enterprise solutions are enabled to stay relevant and be able to advise and support clients across numerous industries.
For example, IBM’s “AI Skills Academy” programs for its employees worldwide, alongside extensive partnerships with universities, teaches employees everything from ethical AI principles to hands-on model development. They also receive support to experiment with IBM’s Watson platform and other emerging AI services. This structured approach to upskilling keeps IBM at the forefront of AI research and enterprise solutions, enabling it to advise and support clients across numerous industries.
How Blockbuster Lost to AI
Another example of how crucial AI can be is the well-known story of Blockbuster, which famously failed to pivot to streaming. Part of its downfall was also a missed opportunity to leverage AI-driven personalization and data analytics for video recommendations and supply chain optimization.
By not capitalizing on AI and data insights to personalize the customer experience (or shift to digital quickly), Blockbuster lost relevance. Machine learning technologies are at the heart of Netflix’s recommendation system. This Netflix AI mechanism is responsible for making recommendations based on your preferences and a host of other factors. The Netflix algorithm curates all user pages, identifying patterns in their rating and watching history.
While Generative AI galloped into widespread public view in Nov 2022, we’ve been using AI for a long time in email, calendars, search and more. The difference is that now the algorithms are available to everyone. Organizations that fall behind, like Blockbuster, can be a major factor in losing market share to data-savvy competitors.
Learn How To Use AI in My Non-Scary Workshops
Emphasizing future AI initiatives
Even (or perhaps especially) if your employer is not embracing AI, you should learn the basic skills:
Basic AI Literacy: including how data is collected for the Large Language Models (LLMs) that fuel each platform,
Knowing how that data is gathered and used equips you to better interpret AI outputs and ensure they’re applied responsibly.
Even those in non-technical roles need to understand AI’s possibilities and limitations to use it effectively.
Prompt Engineering: Learning how to structure questions or “prompts” effectively for AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude, which have become pivotal for drafting emails, generating ideas, coding assistance, and more.
The quality of AI-generated content is heavily dependent on how well you ask the questions (i.e., your prompt).
Prompt engineering can drastically improve your efficiency in tasks like brainstorming, copywriting, customer support, or coding–saving huge amounts of time.
Responsible AI Use and Ethics: Learning the basics of interpretability (understanding how AI arrives at a certain result), especially when AI is used in high-stakes decisions (e.g., hiring, lending).
Misuse or careless application of AI can lead to ethical, legal, or reputational risks. For instance, certain AI resume-screening tools were found to be biased against female candidates because of historical data imbalances—underscoring the need for thorough vetting and governance
Even if your company isn’t officially adopting AI, it’s crucial to know how to use it responsibly. This knowledge positions you as a thoughtful leader when AI inevitably arrives in the workplace.
How to Practice and Stay Current
Hands-On Projects: Even simple personal projects—like building a chatbot to organize your tasks—can help solidify new skills. ChatGPT’s mobile app, for example, will help you with everything from making a gluten-free grocery list and menus for a week to detailed research with source citations.
Online Communities: Join AI-related forums or communities (Reddit’s r/learnmachinelearning, Kaggle and LinkedIn groups) for discussions, Q&A, and support.
Shadow AI: The Risks and Rewards of Employees Going Rogue
Shadow AI refers to the unsanctioned use of AI tools by employees on personal devices—like phones or laptops—when a company has officially prohibited or not yet approved AI solutions. Although employees typically do this to be more productive or creative, it can present serious risks.
Given that there is currently relatively low adoption within organizations, Shadow AI has employees using unapproved AI applications at work. Some employees use ChatGPT or Claude to draft emails and research documents, or Perplexity for quick factual lookups. While beneficial, this unauthorized ‘Shadow AI’ poses security risks.
As Venture Beat notes, The majority of employees creating shadow AI apps aren’t acting maliciously or trying to harm a company. They’re grappling with growing amounts of increasingly complex work, chronic time shortages, and tighter deadlines.
Crucial Next Steps
By building a strong foundation in data literacy, prompt engineering, and AI ethics, you’ll not only future-proof your own career but also be in a position to champion thoughtful AI integration once your company—or a future employer—decides it’s time to dive in.
Dear Employers: Transform Shadow AI into a Secure Advantage
The AI revolution is here now. Telling employees not to use AI is like telling kids not to bring their phones to school. Not going to happen!
A better alternative is to develop a roadmap for safe, compliant AI adoption. That way, you can tap into AI’s advantages without exposing the organization to unnecessary risks.
AI isn’t just for tech giants; organizations of every size are finding that better data-driven decision-making can be the difference between thriving and lagging behind
About B.L. Ochman
I’m B.L. Ochman. For the past 30 years, I’ve been helping B2B and B2C companies create successful marketing strategies and content in verticals from cars to cookies, ticks (really!) to tech.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, I have been studying, using, teaching–and perhaps you could say obsessing–over Generative AI and the capabilities of the apps and platforms that surround it.
I am an AI Trainer & Digital Strategist, helping brands agencies and entrepreneurs use AI for Smarter Marketing