Something Big Is Happening in AI — And Most People Will Be Blindsided

Think back to February 2020.

A few people were talking about a virus spreading overseas. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they'd been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed.

I think we're in the “this seems overblown” phase of something much, much bigger than Covid.

I've spent six years building an AI startup and investing in the space. I live in this world. And I'm writing this for the people in my life who don't. I keep giving them the polite, cocktail-party version. Because the honest version sounds like I've lost my mind. But the gap between what I've been saying and what is actually happening has gotten far too big. The people I care about deserve to hear what is coming, even if it sounds crazy.

I should be clear about something up front: even though I work in AI, I have almost no influence over what's about to happen, and neither does the vast majority of the industry. The future is being shaped by a remarkably small number of people: a few hundred researchers at a handful of companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and a few others.

Most of us who work in AI are building on top of foundations we didn't lay. We're watching this unfold the same as you — we just happen to be close enough to feel the ground shake first.

But it's time now. Not in an “eventually we should talk about this” way. In a “this is happening right now and I need you to understand it” way.

I know this is real because it happened to me first

Here's the thing nobody outside of tech quite understands yet: we're not making predictions. We're telling you what already occurred in our own jobs, and warning you that you're next.

For years, AI had been improving steadily. Then in 2025, new techniques for building these models unlocked a much faster pace of progress. This year, something clicked. Not like a light switch — more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

“I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just… appears. The finished thing.”

I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just… appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing. I tell the AI what I want, walk away from my computer for four hours, and come back to find the work done. Done well, done better than I would have done it myself, with no corrections needed. A couple of months ago, I was going back and forth with the AI, guiding it, making edits. Now I just describe the outcome and leave.

Let me give you an example so you can understand what this actually looks like in practice. I'll tell the AI: “I want to build this app. Here's what it should do, here's roughly what it should look like. Figure out the user flow, the design, all of it.” And it does. It writes tens of thousands of lines of code. Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would. If it doesn't like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it's satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: “It's ready for you to test.” And when I test it, it's usually perfect.

I'm not exaggerating. That is what my Monday looked like this week.

The experience that tech workers have had over the past year, of watching AI go from “helpful tool” to “does my job better than I do”, is the experience everyone else is about to have. Law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, customer service. Not in 10 years. The people building these systems say one to five years. Some say less.

“Law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, customer service. Not in 10 years. The people building these systems say one to five years. Some say less.”

“But I tried AI and it wasn't that good”

If you tried ChatGPT in 2023 or early 2024 and thought “this makes stuff up” or “this isn't that impressive”, you were right. Those early versions were genuinely limited. They hallucinated. They confidently said things that were nonsense.

The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago. The debate about whether AI is “really getting better” or “hitting a wall” — which has been going on for over a year — is over. It's done.

Part of the problem is that most people are using the free version of AI tools. The free version is over a year behind what paying users have access to. Judging AI based on free-tier ChatGPT is like evaluating the state of smartphones by using a flip phone.

What this means for your job

I'm going to be direct with you because I think you deserve honesty more than comfort.

Dario Amodei, who is probably the most safety-focused CEO in the AI industry, has publicly predicted that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. And many people in the industry think he's being conservative.

This is different from every previous wave of automation, and I need you to understand why. AI isn't replacing one specific skill. It's a general substitute for cognitive work. It gets better at everything simultaneously. When factories automated, a displaced worker could retrain as an office worker. When the internet disrupted retail, workers moved into logistics or services. But AI doesn't leave a convenient gap to move into. Whatever you retrain for, it's improving at that too.

I think the honest answer is that nothing that can be done on a computer is safe in the medium term. If your job happens on a screen — if the core of what you do is reading, writing, analyzing, deciding, communicating through a keyboard — then AI is coming for significant parts of it. The timeline isn't “someday.” It's already started.

“Nothing that can be done on a computer is safe in the medium term. Whatever you retrain for, it's improving at that too.”

“AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. And many people in the industry think he's being conservative.”

What you should actually do

I'm not writing this to make you feel helpless. I'm writing this because I think the single biggest advantage you can have right now is simply being early. Early to understand it. Early to use it. Early to adapt.

Start using AI seriously, not just as a search engine. Sign up for the paid version of Claude or ChatGPT. It's $20 a month. Don't just ask it quick questions. That's the mistake most people make. They treat it like Google and then wonder what the fuss is about. Instead, push it into your actual work.

This might be the most important year of your career. Work accordingly. The person who walks into a meeting and says “I used AI to do this analysis in an hour instead of three days” is going to be the most valuable person in the room. Not eventually. Right now.

Have no ego about it. The people who will struggle most are the ones who refuse to engage: the ones who dismiss it as a fad, who feel that using AI diminishes their expertise, who assume their field is special and immune. It's not. No field is.

Rethink what you're telling your kids. The standard playbook — get good grades, go to a good college, land a stable professional job — points directly at the roles that are most exposed. The people most likely to thrive are the ones who are deeply curious, adaptable, and effective at using AI to do things they actually care about. Teach your kids to be builders and learners, not to optimize for a career path that might not exist by the time they graduate.

Your dreams just got a lot closer. If you've ever wanted to build something but didn't have the technical skills or the money to hire someone, that barrier is largely gone. You can describe an app to AI and have a working version in an hour. Want to learn a new skill? The best tutor in the world is now available to anyone for $20 a month — one that's infinitely patient, available 24/7, and can explain anything at whatever level you need. Knowledge is essentially free now.

Build the habit of adapting. The specific tools don't matter as much as the muscle of learning new ones quickly. Make a habit of experimenting. Try new things even when the current thing is working. Get comfortable being a beginner repeatedly. That adaptability is the closest thing to a durable advantage that exists right now.

Here's a simple commitment that will put you ahead of almost everyone: spend one hour a day experimenting with AI. Not passively reading about it. Using it. Every day, try to get it to do something new — something you haven't tried before, something you're not sure it can handle. If you do this for the next six months, you will understand what's coming better than 99% of the people around you.

“Spend one hour a day experimenting with AI. If you do this for the next six months, you will understand what's coming better than 99% of the people around you.”

What I know

I know the next two to five years are going to be disorienting in ways most people aren't prepared for. This is already happening in my world. It's coming to yours.

I know the people who will come out of this best are the ones who start engaging now — not with fear, but with curiosity and a sense of urgency.

We're past the point where this is an interesting dinner conversation about the future. The future is already here. It just hasn't knocked on your door yet.

It's about to.