Some thoughts about the future of work.
AI companies are now realizing that many of their users are finding real value in using AI to create applications and code solutions that make their lives easier. Not developers. Regular people, building for themselves.
If that’s true, here’s my prediction: the future employee will need to come with a resume that also shows what tools, agents, and projects they come equipped with to perform the job they’re applying for.
Why hire the person without the suite?
It really doesn’t make sense anymore to hire an individual for a role when another individual exists who comes with a suite of tools.
And these suites aren’t interchangeable. They’re fully customized and tailored to the work style and workflow of the individual, which makes them genuinely difficult to replicate. Building one requires a deep understanding of how the tools work together, and how they can be adapted and improved as the scope of work changes and the seniority of the person grows.
That last part matters. The toolkit isn’t static. It grows with the person carrying it.
What my own toolkit looks like
Take my own setup as an example.
I have a Telegram assistant that does several things: research, posting to my company’s knowledge base, and consolidating information into my second brain.
I have my company application, an ERP customized for an interior design firm.
I have an operations scheduler that schedules our workers on the ground as they travel between sites.
And I have my personal website, which I’m using AI to post to on my behalf, including this very post.
None of these came off a shelf. And this could easily evolve into a lot of other things, because I have a good understanding of how to use repos from GitHub as a starting point and then tailor the look, the function, and the scalability of each tool I’m equipped with.
Schools are testing for the wrong thing
Meanwhile, there’s an increasing trend of universities and professors coming out to say they’re trying to resolve how to stop students from using AI to cheat on exams.
I think the entire evolution of the space needs to change. AI is soon going to be a commodity, with open-source and even free tools becoming very, very capable. It’s really no longer about recall. It’s about how well you can orchestrate AI to generate the best answers.
So perhaps it’s the curriculum, or the questions themselves, that should be elevated to the next level. Let students focus on thinking about concepts and systems rather than the nitty-gritty memorization and facts on the ground. Those still matter. But with these tools at students’ fingertips, it’s high time educational institutions adapt to this new reality and train students with the skill set that future employers are actually expecting.
And what employers are expecting is changing fast.
The hiring bar just moved
As a business owner, I would think I’d be hiring for these capabilities too.
Because if a candidate doesn’t come with an AI-accelerated skill set, then more often than not, you’re better off just creating another AI agent to do that person’s job. The exception is work that requires being hands-on, on the ground.
That’s the uncomfortable version of the prediction. The generous version is the same idea, flipped: the people who invest now in building their own suite of tools aren’t just making themselves more productive. They’re building the most defensible resume of the next decade.