Making Sense of AI at Work
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an author, then a librarian, then a journalist. By the time I went to university, I was torn between pursing my love of books and language or going into maths and computer science. I majored in Linguistics (the perfect mix) and made my career first as a librarian and then in educational book publishing, before making the switch to tech consulting 10 years ago. Change is always hard, even when it's for the better. The sense of leaving behind all the knowledge, systems and ways of working I had built up over many years and starting again was scary and unsettling. It was a huge leap.
Over the past 10 years, I have realised over and over again how wrong I was in thinking that change meant I was losing something or starting again. Everything I had done before, I brought with me, and learned to apply differently, often in ways that made my difference my strength in a new industry. I've now reached a point of experiencing full-circle moments in my career where new opportunities and experiences have come my way primarily because I made that big change.
It turns out that linguistics and librarianship are incredibly relevant foundational knowledge and skills for working in AI, and I find myself drawing on that more than I ever expected I would in tech. My YouTube channel led to an offer from major publishing house Pearson (where I worked in the early days of my book publishing career) to write a book on Copilot, and then a second book on Copilot Studio, teaching people how to build AI agents using low code. These are books about AI, but they are not written by AI. I use AI everyday, but not to replace the work that brings me pride and joy.
I find AI both fascinating and overwhelming. These new tools that allow us to use natural language open the floodgates of both danger and opportunity for anyone to do anything with genuine "no code" technology. The skills we need to succeed with AI at work are primarily language skills rather than technical skills. Communication, delegation, clarity of thought and instruction, and critical thinking are higher value skills than ever.
"Will AI take my job?" is the headline question for knowledge workers, but this change is about so much more than that. What does it mean for your industry, for the environment? Is there any real value or is it just hype? Most people are nowhere near keeping up with the pace of change, struggling to learn how to use AI effectively (or at all) while also keeping up with their regular jobs (even if they have been given access to the tools, which many haven't been). Others are feeling they have failed if they can't get AI to do what they've been told (or assumed) it's supposed to do, conerned they are 'behind' or 'stupid' because they don't know how to use it, or simply don't know where to start in the overwhelm of information. If any of this is you, you're not alone, and you're not behind, not by a long shot.
So I am feeling inspired to pick up that old journalism dream in a new way, to write from my own brain in my own words about a subject that I know people are asking for - making sense of AI at work. I hope you'll feel the human element of every word on this (virtual) page, including the deliberate human use of that em dash in the last sentence, which I refuse to let AI steal from me entirely as a writer!
If you subscribe, I can promise there will be no "AI slop" here. I'll share my reflections and insights on what AI means for us at work, the challenges and opportunities it brings, the things you need to understand (in non-technical language) and most importantly, how to make AI work for you. It's an exciting and scary journey, and I hope I can help make sense of it for you and with you.