AI is coming for our jobs.

A sober warning.

"A.I. is coming for our jobs."

A little over a year ago, I told a room full of senior logistics professionals that “AI is coming for our jobs.” Those were my final closing words on the CEO speaker panel at the GS1 Summit in Hong Kong.

The room was was completely silent, and I could see awkward stares from many with expressions reading “Are you trying be funny? Remind me who decided to put you on this panel again?”

The moderator Anson Bailey, partner at KPMG, read the room quickly and moved onto to the next speaker without delay.

After the panel, nobody came to speak with me. I had prophesized something ridiculous, and so the Cassandra of logistics I would be. I was never invited back to the conference.

A.I. Deniers and Mitigators

There are indeed many A.I. deniers who don’t believe that machines will ever replace humans.

"I don't think artificial intelligence is a threat. Human beings are smart enough to learn that. People like us, street smart, we're never afraid of that."

- Jack Ma (famous last words, debate with Elon Musk)

There are also A.I. mitigators who believe that A.I. will not eliminate jobs, but will create new opportunities and entirely new industries. Their arguments often sound something like this:

"An A.I. will not take your job, but someone who uses A.I. will."

"Massive A.I. and robotics deployment will lead to massive new industries to manage and maintain those A.I. and robotics."

And my favourite:

"We are hiring prompt engineers."

-Somebody who has no current listings for prompt engineers 

Your Lack of Faith is Disturbing

The reason the majority of people in the world do not acknowledge humanity’s state of peril is that they lack awareness of where A.I. is going, how fast it’s getting there, and a sense of creativity akin to villainous corporate executives like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.

One year ago, when I was ostracized, the majority of people in the audience had never used an LLM, and if they had, it was a ChatGPT 3.0 model. If only they had known what the future ChatGPT 4.0 models could do, perhaps I would have had at least some tepid nods of acknowledgement.

Back then, and I mean only 1 year ago, we still heard these kind of arguments:

"A.I. cannot write music or poetry."

In hindsight it was silly. Here’s a generative A.I. song about how AI cannot write music. You decide:

When image GenAI Midjourney v6 was launched in 2024, waves of enthusiasts posted their GenAI images all over the internet, prompting many pundits to proclaim that “prompt engineering” was a specialized skill that, once mastered, would allow the prompt engineer to transcend the design limitations of humanity.

Midjourney Prompt: 
Photograph of men working, Daguerreotype, calotype, tintype, collodion, ambrotype, carte-de-visite, gelatin silver, dry plate, wet plate, stereoscope, albumen print, cyanotype, glass, lantern slide, camera --ar 3:2 --style raw

Now ChatGPT 4o allows anyone to generate an image in natural language:

Give me a black and white photo like the example attached and make it look authentic like it's from the 40's.

Early AI users utilizing ChaptGPT 3 and early ChatGPT 4 models became experts at various workarounds:

• Describing spreadsheet data in painstaking detail

• Chunking and parsing information, prompts, and results into bits and pieces

• Building ridiculously long prompt templates and guides

6 months later, however, most of these workarounds are no longer necessary. In only 6 month, the entire “prompt engineering” industry seems to have disappeared.

Reality Sucks

The truth is that corporations and the humans behind them can’t wait to replace their humans with AI. Corporate greed has no limit. AND — it’s already happening.

“Before asking for more headcount, teams must prove why AI can’t do the job.”

- Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify, internal memo  

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski claims that AI is now doing the work of 700 customer service agents, and the company’s headcount has been reduced from 5,000 to 3,000, with much of the reduction attributed to AI.

“So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for our jobs. Heck, it’s coming for mine too. This is a wake-up call.”

- Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr 

CompTIA reports that from Jan ‘23 to Mar ‘25, tech job postings have dropped from 625,000 to 467,000, all while tech stock earnings continue to grow.

“A control tower has a lot of information. What if we don’t need the human? What if there is an AI agent that sits on top of this?”  

- Mark Talens, EVP chief strategy & solutions officer, ParkourSC 

According to a recent survey by Euromonitor, 43% of consumers considered generative AI as a trustworthy source of information anyway, so who needs humans?

“With our agenda to accelerate digitalization, we are committed to maximizing the impact of robotics and automation across all our operations and business units.”

- Sally Miller, Global CIO of DHL Supply Chain.

Weeks after announcing a 20,000 person lay off, UPS also announced that they are introducing humanoid robots at their warehouses.

Is AI coming for your jobs? Unless you’re blind, it’s already taking them.

What Comes Next

When considering the impact of AI, leaders need to think 3 steps ahead. Don’t only ask where AI is today and what AI tools are available right now, ask “Where will AI will be 9 months from now? 18 months from now?”

Consider some trends:

• Increasingly powerful LLMs with higher ingestion and output power

• Significantly increased agency and autonomy

• Cross system AIs whether by integration, data sharing, etc.

• AIs which need little to no training or feeding

If businesses are already hiring less and replacing staff with ChatGTP 4 models, then the next major model release 9 months from now is going to end entry level hiring in vulnerable professional industries like copy writing/editing, law, accounting, coding, finance and banking, and even management consulting.

18 months from now, AIs are likely going to eliminate a large swath of management roles.

What Can You Do

A year before I was sitting on that stage at GS1 (so two years ago), I was speaking on a panel for technology and innovation at the Armstrong and Associates 3PL Value Creation Summit 2023.

When asked how big logistics companies can innovate, I said that companies should make tech their culture. “Everyone in the company should become technical,” as I controversially stated that everyone should do their own SQL.

Business leaders in the room starred at me. Some shared their opinion that there was no reason to learn SQL because they had IT staff for that.

“The reason you should learn SQL,” I said, “is so that you can get used to constantly learning and mastering technology, and get used to be nimble, fast, and multi-disciplined.”

And it’s exactly the same with AI. In hindsight there was no need learn SQL or master Midjourney 6 prompt engineering. But the type of person that does those things is also likely the same kind of person who is currently learning and using the latest AI tools, and helping their company evaluate future solutions, as well as a holistic AI strategy (or, just strategy).

Those people are precisely what Tobi Lutke, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and Micha Kaufman want in their companies.

So go forth and become the most productive person on the team. Become the person that masters AI tools. Become the natural candidate to transition into a career in AI management within your industry.

I say it again, AI is coming for a lot more of our jobs, and your best defence as a professional and company is to ensure that AI mastery is part of your culture, and not a software solution that your IT team will implement.

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Want to stay ahead of the AI curve? Logistics leaders looking for help in assessing, deploying, and harnessing the power of AI can visit www.moative.com.