The Future Of Work Isn’t About AI. It’s About Us.

by Laurel Donnellan and Sarah Feely (Originally published at Forbes.com) 

I'll be honest with you: a year ago, I was in a panic about AI. I was afraid of it the way a lot of leaders I know are afraid of it: quietly, privately, and perhaps a little irrationally.

So, I decided to learn everything I could about it. I spent nine out of ten days at SXSW this spring, immersed in conversations with technologists and innovators. I interviewed experts for Forbes. I read research and listened to futurists, economists, founders, and educators. I started experimenting with three AI platforms, and I recently watched two well-done documentaries on the perils and pitfalls, which I recommend:

1. The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
2. Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever

I am more neutral on the subject of AI from this informed perspective. I can see the potential for both hope and horror in equal measure. And I believe we all need to band together to be informed, engaged, and activated to ensure our future and our children’s future is brighter, not darker, from this rapidly growing tech. Leaders need to dig deeper to make ethical decisions about how to use AI that consider its impact on employment, the environment, and society, beyond the bottom line. 

This week, to further my education, I hosted a conversation on the Compassionate Leaders Circle Podcast with Dr. Kelly Monahan, bestselling author and former Director of Future of Work at Meta, and KeyAnna Schmiedl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman. Our Chief Learning Officer, Sarah Feely, guided the discussion.

In this fun and insightful conversation, I realized that hyper-focusing on only AI fears is the wrong approach. Another narrative about AI is that we're entering an era of unprecedented reinvention, and most organizations and individuals aren't prepared for it. This era is an opportunity to be more thoughtful, innovative, and compassionate.

We started by talking about AI. We ended up talking about power, education, economic uncertainty, leadership, and what it means to build a meaningful career when the rules keep changing. 

The Age Of Career Fluidity Has Arrived

Consider the numbers. Baby Boomers averaged approximately 13 jobs over their working lives and roughly six distinct career chapters. For Generation Beta—those born beginning in 2025—career fluidity won't be a disruption. It will be normal. The challenge is that our systems still assume careers are linear.

Future-of-work experts predict that today's children could hold 20 or more jobs and move through multiple distinct career chapters as longer working lives, technological disruption, and the rise of portfolio careers reshape how work unfolds Longer careers, rapid technological change, AI-driven disruption, shorter tenures, “portfolio careers,” entrepreneurship, freelance work, caregiving responsibilities, and economic uncertainty are all contributing to a future in which reinvention becomes routine rather than exceptional.

As our guest, Schmiedl pointed out, most education systems are behind. They are still preparing students for their first job, not their tenth transition. Most organizations are still developing employees for today's role rather than tomorrow's reinvention. And many leaders are still treating career interruptions as exceptions rather than expected realities.

My colleague and podcast co-host, Feely, has been thinking and writing a lot about purpose and identity found in work. She framed the career fluidity challenge as “Not about simply helping people prepare for their next job. It's helping them maintain a coherent sense of identity through multiple career chapters. When work changes this quickly, people need more than skills. They need a story that can evolve with them.“What many leaders are missing is that the anxiety surrounding AI isn't only about employment. It's about identity. People are asking deeper questions: Who am I if my role changes? What value do I bring? Where do I fit? That goes for people at all ages and stages”.

The Skills Gap Is Really An Adaptability Gap

This week was the second time I had the honor of interviewing Schmiedl for Forbes. In addition, my team and I cover her company’s annual event, Workhuman Live, which attracts researchers like Monahan and practitioners from around the world who are dedicated to putting people first. 

According to workforce research, skills shortages have become a persistent challenge for employers. McKinsey found that 87% of companies either already have a skills gap or expect one within the next few years, while recent talent surveys show that roughly three-quarters of employers report difficulty finding the skilled talent they need. Across industries, many critical roles remain open for extended periods as organizations struggle to find candidates with the right mix of technical and human skills. 

According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, employers increasingly value analytical thinking, resilience, flexibility, leadership, and social influence—evidence that many of the most important skills in the AI era are profoundly human ones. According to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, the U.S. economy will need an additional 5.25 million workers with postsecondary training by 2032. The issue isn't a lack of jobs. It's whether our systems can prepare people for work that is changing faster than ever before.

Future employment will require both AI literacy and human capability, technical competence and relational intelligence, and the ability to leverage technology while remaining deeply human.

As Schmiedl noted during our conversation, “one of my biggest concerns is whether our education systems can adapt quickly enough to help people understand not only how the technology works, but how organizations are actually using it.”

Good AI Should Create More Human Connection, Not Less 

Monahan offered a practical checklist that every professional should consider before implementing any AI solution.

1. Does it help people work faster?
2. Does it improve quality?
3. And most importantly, does it free people to spend more time in the physical world connecting with other humans?

That third question may be the most important leadership question of the next decade. Too many organizations are measuring AI success through efficiency alone. Compassionate leaders should measure it differently. Does it create more space for coaching? More creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and more human connection? More time for family, friends, and fun? 

If the answer is no, we should ask whether AI is the right solution. 

Crowdsource The Genius

One of our favorite insights from Schmiedl was her call to "crowdsource the genius" within organizations. Too often, AI strategies are designed by executives and consultants far removed from the actual work. Yet the people closest to the work understand exactly where friction exists, where value is created, and where technology could genuinely help.

Compassionate leadership has never been about having all the answers. It's about creating the conditions where collective intelligence can emerge. That becomes even more important in periods of uncertainty. The leaders who thrive won't be the ones who pretend to know exactly what's coming. They'll be the ones who remain curious enough to learn alongside their people. 

Zoom out to Macroeconomics 

Monahan challenged a narrative many leaders have accepted without question. "We can't scapegoat that this is an AI issue all the time. This is a macroeconomic issue that most companies are facing." Inflation. Economic uncertainty. Pressure for growth. Shareholder expectations. AI has become the convenient explanation for decisions that organizations were already considering.

She also made an observation that cuts to the heart of why this moment feels so different from previous technology disruptions, which affected primarily blue-collar jobs: "This is the time we're seeing technology come for high-paying white-collar jobs (and others), and I think that is something we just have to grapple with. You went to college, you got the job, you got the STEM degree—what's the number one thing AI is great at? Coding. I would never tell my nephew to go get a coding degree today." 

This isn't abstract. AI is affecting real people and families, no matter what kind of work is being replaced; many are in the sandwich generation, caring for aging parents, trying to figure out what to tell their kids, who may feel irrelevant within five years. As leaders, we have a moral responsibility to take that seriously, not to accelerate it in the name of efficiency. 

Curiosity Is The Leadership Skill Of The Future

As the conversation came to a close, both Monahan and Schmiedl kept returning to the same theme.

Curiosity, not certainty, is the name of the game. Not expertise; not control, but curiosity. The leaders who are navigating this moment most effectively are willing to suspend self-interest, share power, ask better questions, and remain open to being surprised. That mindset may matter more than any technical skill.

Paradoxically, the greater the fear and uncertainty, the more tightly we tend to hold on. We protect our ideas and hide our vulnerabilities. We stop sharing credit and stop crowdsourcing the genius around us. Yet this moment calls for the opposite. In a time of uncertainty, leaders must be willing to loosen their grip, share power, get curious, and trust the collective wisdom of their people.

No one can predict exactly what work will look like twenty years from now. What we do know is that people will experience more transitions than any previous generation. The role of leadership is not to eliminate uncertainty. It's to help people navigate it with agency, confidence, and purpose.

That's why I believe the future of work conversation cannot and should not be about AI alone. It must be about helping humans continuously rewrite their story, navigate uncertainty without losing themselves, grapple with discomfort rather than avoid it, replace certainty with curiosity, and replace ego with humility. The people who will thrive in this next chapter won't be the ones with all the answers, but those most open to the possibilities, the unknowns, and the constant that is change.

What do we all do now?

1. Give yourself and your team permission to dream. The foundation of long-term career satisfaction relates to personal interests, talents, passions, and purpose. The foundation of your team’s and the company’s thriving is making dreaming and innovation an ongoing practice for everyone, not reserved for “creatives” and off-sites. 

2. Become AI fluent. Learn how to use the tools while tempering that with understanding the impact they are making and will make on our work and the world. Carve out your own agency by choosing how you want to use AI and advocating for a human-first approach at work and in your community.

3. Get ready for reinvention before you have to. Explore a wider range of options for yourself and your team for future work options, including full-time jobs, part-time roles, freelance gigs, and entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial pursuits. 

4. Plan for Pauses and Pivots. More jobs and career chapters in your life will require more time for breaks from work. Be proactive with your ongoing career, education, financial, and mental/physical health planning and practices. If you have a team, support them in developing skills that prepare them for reinvention. 

5. Vote. Vote for candidates who are developing necessary guardrails for AI. Vote with your dollars by buying products from companies using AI ethically. Vote with your choices by pursuing roles and projects that lean into the promise and avoid the perils of AI.

Please join us as we continue this conversation about the future of work at our free online event on July 30th: The Work on Purpose Summit: Designing a Meaningful Career in the Age of AI.