EP 515: Job Security Is Dead in the Age of AI. What You Should Do Instead.
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This is the Everyday AI Show, the everyday podcast where we simplify AI and bring its power to your fingertips. Listen daily for practical advice to boost your career, business, and everyday life. Your average company or your average full-time employment is probably going to look a heck of a lot different in a couple of years versus what it looks like today.

And as you can probably guess, because you're listening to the Everyday AI podcast, it's because of AI, right? And today we're going to be talking about why job security might be dead in the age of AI and what you should be doing instead. I know that so many people out there are probably thinking about this. What does my career look like in the near future? What should my skill set look

you know, how should I be shaping or changing or improving on my skillset? And yeah, what the heck is we're going to look like, right? And although we probably won't have definitive answers, we have no crystal ball. But I even feel personally confident saying, yeah, the whole job security thing, not really like it used to be right where you could park yourself in a cubicle for 20 to 30 years and ride it out. It's not like that. Luckily, you

You don't have to hear me rant about it all day. We have a great guest, so I'm excited for today's show. But welcome to Everyday AI. If you're new here, this is your daily live stream podcast and free daily newsletter, helping us all not just keep up with AI, but how we can use it to get ahead, grow our companies and our careers. If that sounds like what you're trying to do, if you're trying to be the smartest person in AI at your company,

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All right, so enough chitchat. This is actually a prerecorded one that we're debuting live. So if you're looking for the daily AI news, that's going to be in the newsletter. But I'm excited for today's guest. So please help me welcome to the show as we bring here on the live stream here, Dr. Joan Palminer-Bajorak. Joan, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI Show.

Delighted to be here. Hey, Jordan. All right. And so tell us a little bit. What is Clarity AI? So you're the CEO of Clarity AI and you also have a book. Tell us a little bit about your background in AI. Absolutely. Well, I've been a data and AI builder for the last decade now. And as the CEO of Clarity AI, which is the group I founded, we build custom AI and data solutions for scaling SMB, agriculture, manufacturing. I get to do tons of cool projects.

but working on the back ends of things and scaling with companies to build them AI automations and data lakes and digital twins and fun things like that. And I have a new book out. It's my first book, actually, Your AI Roadmap, which is more of a B2C book talking about, or people in my DMs are constantly like, how did you do it? Like what's going on there? And so I'm talking about modern careers and money stuff as I'm an AI influencer,

Helping people just a few steps behind me, things I wish I'd known two years ago that could have made my life so much, much easier. So Your AI Roadmap is both my book and my podcast, not as cool as this podcast, but out there as well.

So, you know, speaking of your story, so you even have some personal experience in today's, you know, episode of job security in AI. Tell everyone a little bit of what that was like for you, you know, going through some kind of AI layoffs. Oh, yeah. Well, here in Seattle, it's more and more common. But just, you know, as the listener, this might be shocking. I've been in not one, but two jobs.

large scale AI layoffs. And the first time I took it so personally, but then you zoom out a little bit and you're like 30% of the company let go in a day.

Is that really personal? Like, you know, experience is painful. And Harvard Business Review says that 50% of US adults are experiencing layoff anxiety, which I don't know if people are listening might feel that anxiety. But here in Seattle, that could be 80%. Like the daily layoff announcements from Meta and Starbucks and Intel. Anyway, it's a lot. So a lot of the things I talk about with general audience people is like, how do we take care of ourselves and our careers and our money? Like what kind of agency to take action? Just being like,

Like being in an anxious place, it's not going to do you much. So what actions can we take? Yeah. And it's, you know, it's serendipitous maybe, right? Like this is all like so many things are happening at the same time, probably in a bad way, right? You know, the U.S. economy, you know, I know we have, you know, people listening from all over the world, but the U.S. economy has been in, you know, kind of some turmoil over the last couple of months, right?

You know, we've had these big AI layoffs that happened, you know, in mass in 2023, 2024. And then at the same time, the AI systems, you know, a lot of them coming out of, you know, your backyard there in Seattle and the West Coast and Silicon Valley, they're becoming more and more capable and agentic by default, right? So, you know, could you kind of give everyone else some

a thumbprint of where we're at with that AI anxiety. Like, why is it 50%? Why are so many people scared of what's happening? I think a lot of people who have just day jobs, like that is their health insurance. That is like how they pay their mortgage. And to know that, I mean, the Shopify CEO that I don't know whether it was leaked or otherwise, but like you have to justify headcount.

Like, why are we not using AI versus a human? And actually in my work, we benchmark against mechanical jerk. It's actually, you say, do we want to build it? Is it better to build an AI or to have a human do it? And like, look at those costs breakdown. That's something I've been doing for several years now. But I think people living in that fear, living in that like layoff anxiety is like, I don't feel stable anymore. Should I feel scared? Will we have layoffs? Uh,

I don't know that anyone, even Sam Altman, even Sam Altman can get ousted in a day from his own company. Right. So I don't think anybody is safe. And we're not used to a society like that. We're used to, as you mentioned, that cubicle, 20, 30 years, put your butt in the seat, work on that computer. I'm good to go kind of narrative. And that is absolutely not the case anymore into this new future of work.

And so I think people are scared, but there's just there's so much volatility. This is April 2025, right? So that shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. But how what we do next is kind of, again, my don't don't be too scared. Take action is my mantra.

Yeah. And I do obviously want to spend a good majority of the time talking about what we do next, but I'm glad you brought up that Shopify example. So yeah, this was about two weeks ago. I think it was initially a leak, but then he actually just put this out, his full kind of memo to his employees on Twitter, where essentially he said, AI is a fundamental expectation for employees now. And before requesting resources, whether it's

hiring more people or just budget, they first had to justify why AI couldn't do it better, right?

Part of me, when I saw that, part of me was like, okay, duh. But then part of me was like, okay, that's actually very profound for what it means for growing businesses. How should business leaders be processing when they see a very visible company like that put out a memo? Should business leaders, CEOs, small business owners, should they be putting that same kind of memo out or at least having that way of thinking?

I would hope so. I think it's really helpful. And my gut reaction was like, wow, that's hardcore. And then I was like, honestly, if you want to be a company that's around in five, 10 years, these are the questions I recommend you ask. Or even like, as you mentioned, leadership, right? Like as a management, are we future-proofing ourselves as a team to think about how we are helpful to the overall company budget? Like, I think this is

It really makes sense for future-proofed companies. And I certainly speak to them daily about like, how are you going to make it in the next few decades? What is your value add? What is your moat that makes you uniquely helpful as a human using AI? Like it's an additive. Anyway, I think that goes back to the fear mongering, but ask the question. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, for so many adults and I'm sure it's, you know, worldwide, not just here in the U.S., but going back to that sat where 50 percent here are, you know, kind of experiencing this layoff anxiety. You know, I know a lot of people just kind of twiddle their thumbs and, you know, see all the new, you know, capabilities that AI systems have and hope it doesn't hit home. Right. What should people be doing?

Well, in a company, if you want to stay at your company, I recommend you upskill in whatever tools are in your sector. So if you're in the finance sector, what cool tools are there available for you to upskill in? Raise your hand to those work groups that are prototyping. You know, it's wild to me, like 92% of the Fortune 500 are already prototyping with OpenAI's tools. Whether they're successful or not remains to be seen. But like you prototyping yourself as an individual,

within your company, like work to future-proof yourself, get excited, try to be curious. And I would say also document the ROI. Is there an ROI? Will compute costs be so high that actually doesn't have an ROI? Like I think just being thoughtful about that budget piece or the fiscals, watching those fiscals is something I'd recommend also. So I'm guessing most people, you know, listening to the show have a rather, uh,

um, proactive approach to AI, you know, probably looking at it, uh, with a little bit more optimism than PES, uh, than pessimism, or at least hopefully, right. You would assume people, uh, listening, but maybe for if they're directing teams that maybe don't have, uh, as positive of a view as, uh, AI, right. And this is something, you know, when we consult with companies or, you know, speak at companies, this is something we hear all the time is, you know, kind of like what you were saying there, uh,

employees don't always want to be using in building these AI solutions because it's kind of like, whoa, I'm replacing myself, right? I'm replacing my skill set. How should companies and employees be meeting that head on because it's an extremely sticky situation? Oh, gosh. I've seen the carrot. I've seen the stick on this one. I mean, on a basic level, I recommend just like upskilling trainings.

Like the Samsung data breach where people put source code into an LLM externally. Did they have a training to say like, just because it doesn't look like an email, like how are you helping your internal employees? Even the one that's dragging their feet, who doesn't want to learn, make them like that upskilling in data and AI literacy that everyone needs. It's kind of like putting a computer in the workplace. Like everyone needs to start working on the computer. Same here. Everyone needs to build that acumen, that skillset. So yeah,

That's it. You're asking me about a human psychology question. I don't know that I'm qualified to answer, but that's how I'd start. So, you know, even when it comes to training, it seems black and white, right? At least to me. But some stuff I hear from companies, even, you know, some of the largest companies in the world, I scratch my head because I'm like, okay, training shouldn't be that hard. But it seems for whatever reason to be this elusive thing

thing that companies just can't nail down. We've been saying, train your employees, train your employees, upskill, reskill, skill share, cross-skill, skill anything, but it's not happening. Why do you think that here we are two and a half years into ChatGPT, five plus years into generative AI, yet skilling and AI literacy is this never-ending problem for companies?

Oh, gosh, if I could answer that question. I mean, I've talked to family members who are like, is this just like NFTs? Can I just wait for this to go away? And I'm like, unfortunately, not this one. And I think that also comes from leadership that is like, this scares me or I have an aunt.

I'd rather retire than upskill was a phrase used at a family party. So, you know, I really think it's between the ears. But you're right. It's not rocket science. These trainings were not, you know, one to 10. Can we just start with the fundamentals, the basics? I don't expect everyone to be an R&D AI engineer tomorrow. It's not.

reasonable nor fiscally responsible, but like the basic steps as people listening to this. Hopefully you're doing that upscaling for yourself, regardless of what company you work at today or tomorrow. Are you still running in circles trying to figure out how to actually grow your business with AI? Maybe your company has been tinkering with large language models for a year or more, but can't really get traction to find ROI on Gen AI. Hey, this is Jordan Wilson, host of this very podcast.

Companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have partnered with us because they trust our expertise in educating the masses around generative AI to get ahead. And some of the most innovative companies in the country hire us to help with their AI strategy and to train hundreds of their employees on how to use Gen AI. So whether you're looking for chat GPT training for thousands,

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Speaking of companies of tomorrow, I kind of started with a little monologue there. It's going to look a little different. What do you see full-time employment? Is it changing? Are we still going to have traditional full-time jobs in five to 10 years or the majority of U.S. adults? Is that how it's going to work? How might this shake out? Yeah.

I mean, here in Seattle, investors love seeing the small teams that bring in huge amount of revenue. That's a very software mind. It's that I think this has life. I don't see full time long term employment as the thing anymore. I see more of a project based freelance, like the more we can gigify.

you know, people don't want to pay for headcount and overhead and health insurance if they don't have to on the leadership. It's a very sad, like corporate, very capitalistic idea. But I think that

diversifying our income streams, not being so reliant just on one source of income, that one FTE. I think that's a dangerous prospect. And more and more people see that. People like me who've been laid off are like, wait a minute, I can build different income streams. I actually have 22 income streams. I list them in my book. But that diversification builds more stability for anybody. So more and more insecurity on that job front.

And yeah, it's a great point. It's actually, you know, if you haven't listened, I think that was episode 446 on our 2025 AI predictions and roadmap series that we talked about that one in depth. So if kind of the gig economy for the everyday average American worker, if you're like, wait, what's that mean? Make sure to go check that out. But, you know, even as it comes to skills, people should be building, right? So let's say it's fair to say,

50% sure. I would say even the majority of people listening to this show probably have some sort of anxiety when it comes to their job security. What should they actually be doing? Because yeah, we can talk about upskilling, reskilling all day. What should they be learning? What should they be spending their time on? Maybe while they still have a full-time job, what are those skill sets they should be sharpening?

Yeah, well, this is, I think, going to be a little weird one. People might not assume this, but looking into the data, having lived it, your personal brand and your networking. When I looked at the research, this has worked for me, but also the research, LinkedIn, after first layoffs, big layoffs in 2020 for COVID layoffs, people landed there, 70% of people landed in their next job based on an introduction.

70%. It wasn't spamming your CV to 400 boxes. It was who you know. Oh, Tim knows this thing. Lisa knows this thing. Like 70%. It's a human-based game.

I could talk, there's more data to that point if you want to dive into that. But the point being, it's who you know. So going to that networking event in your industry, or if you want to upskill, pivot, you're like, hey, I really want to triple down in AI and pharma. Great. Go to those events, talk to people, follow up, you know, your LinkedIn and like who you are on these platforms. So like tripling down on personal branding and that networking flywheel will future-proof you, I believe, in that kind of career, future-proof your career idea. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's just good call out for all humans in general. Right. I think I'm probably on the extreme end of, you know, talking to LLMs way more than I talk to humans. And, you know, I always have to remind myself to go outside and touch grass. Right. But it almost seems counterintuitive. Right. But it's smart. Right. We have all these humans.

know smart ais we can talk to all day and accomplish so much and i love your example you know people are using all these you know ai tools to apply for 80 000 jobs in 10 minutes it's like no go shake some hands right um you know can can you talk to uh that that point a little bit more is that kind of one of those things where hey uh when everyone else is zigging maybe you should zag

Hmm. Well, I think people love like the skills, like hiding behind the things and just doing the skills. But the person who's actually going to get you the job is a human, most likely, most likely. And so, I mean, an example I'll give is like the flywheel. If you

build up this personal brand, you build up your skill set. I got an amazing message recently from someone I met for 30 minutes years ago who remembered me and DMed me and was like, I found you again on LinkedIn. There's this huge opportunity. I want to connect you with this person. It's a win-win. I see you still do this work.

huge dollar sign opportunity in my DMs just from having a personal brand up, continuing to talk about the stuff I do, like that network from years ago. Or like, anyway, it paid Zividen's, very cool project. But like the ability for you to know the human, I wouldn't have known that project existed, let alone apply for it, right? And the things that aren't ever listed on job postings.

So you can, if you'd like to supplement and still spam your CV, but it's really, how are you going to be in the top starred CVs? The recommended list. That's getting a referral from someone who works at that company that they vouch for you. And they say, yeah, Jordan's amazing. You got to talk to him. Right. I mean, I'll even like letter yesterday, my DMs, a CEO is hiring from very nice job, pays $600 to $800,000. Only warm intros is how people interview for that job.

So she was like, I need someone in this and this with this category. And I was like, I know three people. I'll send them your way. So it's a very relationship-

Isn't it weird though? We work in AI and I'm like tripling down on recommending human stuff, but it's true. I think it's smart. Right. It's when the freeway's congested, but no one's on the train. Maybe it's like take train to stand out, which sounds counterintuitive, right? Everything that people did in the 60s, 70s, until the internet started to take over. It's like, yeah, go meet people, shake hands. It's about who you know and what you know sometimes.

You know, one other thing I wanted to ask you about a little bit is, you know, having like an emergency plan, right? Like a layoff plan. What does that mean? And why should, you know, maybe professionals that are very happily employed right now and see things going, you know, swimmingly, why do they need to be prepared for, you know, that AI layoff?

Yeah, well, don't we always think it's never going to be us? The side swipe, the jab. Most Americans don't have an emergency fund. Emergency fund is traditionally three to six months of living expenses off and on, like a high yield savings account, boring on the side, stable monies. Most people don't have that. Most people, even people who are making wild amounts of money, sadly are living paycheck to paycheck sometimes. It blows my mind. And then I've talked to my friends. I'm like, anyway, I talked in my book about someone, my friend who makes 1.3 million a year.

and she does not have financial stability. It blows my mind. Anyway, I didn't ask her further personal questions, but I recommend to anybody to sleep well at night. Even if you think you're like, trajectory, I'm going to get the next promotion, bonus, I see it all for myself. Making sure, especially in this volatile climate, you may not have a choice. As I mentioned, 30% of the company might get let go in a day. If things change for you and your company, you may not have the opportunity. Taking care of that financial house, building your acumen in financial literacy, but

boring, basic stuff that'll help you build wealth. And then that personal branding and that networking, those are like the three things. If you're like figuring out your plan, if you're like, oh, or maybe the person listening is like, actually I am where there's a layoff rumored. Like it could be me. Emergency fund, personal brand,

network are the three things I'd spend all my time making sure I had. And just expansion. I think people get so nervous and scared and they're like, oh, I can trim my budget, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, why don't you just sell something?

and make more do you know what I mean like making that first extra dollar I think it's like one of the most exciting things you're like wait a minute I could make a lot more like the upside is a huge potential up so I think hopefully the person listening is not like oh she's telling me to like be scared and like set aside this money I'm saying like have that robust stability and make more yeah I

I think it's extremely important. It's something I've never been shy about this, right? We're 510 plus episodes in. I started this thing out day one, episode one, saying AI is going to take more jobs than it creates. And the future of work, it is your college educated people, like probably so many of us listening, you're going to have multiple side hustles. You're going to have multiple...

Companies, multiple careers, that's the reality. If you follow the math, follow the studies, there's no other way it shakes out, I think. But let's still stay inside the friendly confines of the US cubicles.

Let's talk about teams. How might teams change? I'm not going to hold you to it in a year, but how might those even positions or types of jobs change because of AI?

Yeah, well, I think, as you mentioned, I agree with you completely the size of teams and just how many jobs are left in a three to five year period. Way smaller team size, especially development. I mean, software engineering jobs are already disappearing, but also like what skill sets you need in those jobs. Like I've interviewed some developers who didn't know yet how to debug generated code.

Debugging generative code is different from debugging someone else's human code. Maybe that should be obvious, but it was not for people I was interviewing. So having your skill set match what's going on in the future using these tools. So shape of, and we need fewer entry-level people usually. So I think there's a bifurcation of super senior, a CTO who will always review things before it gets deployed or check bugs. It

Like, anyway, I have a fantastic CTO. She's not worried about her job. But more that like mid-level, I think, is being separated out. Do we need these mid-level folks? Whereas I think some grunt workers on that intro entry level are still needed in some points. But just like size of teams and skill sets would be shifting. What are teams that might be...

growing, right? So you kind of talked about software development, right? Those jobs, you know, maybe might not look or the size or the quantity. And yeah, we've already seen since I think 2022, just the amount of new software development roles decreasing at a rapid rate year over year. But yeah, what are maybe some of those, you know, roles or team sizes that could be increasing? Is that something that could happen?

Yeah, I don't, I mean, speculation, I love that you did it as well. One of the coolest studies I saw was from Upwork, you know, that freelancing platform that they noticed that after ChatGPT came out, writing jobs, copywriting, kind of traditional marketing jobs were disappearing off the platform or decreasing by 30 to 40%. Video editing jobs were spiking almost 40% that those were jobs that were needed. I think a lot of short form video is more and more popular on LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, etc.,

a human to do quality video editing is frequently still needed. So if anyone's looking for a lucrative side hustle, at least for the next three years, quality video editing is a skill set companies and teams pay for. Yeah.

It's funny. It's something, you know, I used to do a lot of that like 15 years ago and I'm like, man, like I've done my time in that. I'll let someone more ambitious take that one on. So we've covered a lot in today's, you know, conversation from, you know, even your own personal story with the AI layoffs, how job security is changing and even how the future of

Full-time employment might not be really what we've come to realize over the last few decades. But as we wrap up, what's the one most important piece of actionable advice that you have for our listeners? Oh, gosh. Well, can it be go get the book? No. My book would be really helpful if you're thinking about these topics.

It step-by-step walks through. The number one thing, though, I'd recommend, and I've seen this in my friends who get laid off, who don't take care of themselves, the mental and physical health being crucial during this time. No one wants to hire you if you're not taking care of yourself. If you're showing up to that network event looking bedraggled, it's just less compelling. Okay? So making sure to keep working out, eating your vegetables, taking care of your mind if you need to go to therapy, et cetera, like those nuts and bolts of like basic human take care of yourself. Okay?

So crucial today more than any other day if you're especially experiencing that anxiety. So I go to therapy, take care of yourself, but that would be my super number one. Yeah.

Love that. You know, I've asked a lot of people, you know, you never get someone that says like, take care of your mental health, eat your fruits and vegetables, go exercise. Yeah. Like do the human things. Go touch grass, shake hands, eat your veggies. Love to hear it. Well, Jo, thank you so much for sharing your time and insights on the Everyday AI Show. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Jordan. It's a pleasure to be here.

All right. We covered a lot, y'all. If you missed anything, maybe you're on the treadmill walking your dog and you're like, oh, that was interesting. It's going to be in our newsletter. Don't worry. So if you haven't already, please go to youreverydayai.com. There you can go sign up for the free daily newsletter. We're going to be recapping today's conversation and a whole lot more. And while you're on our website, you can go listen to like, I don't know, 500 plus podcasts

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