The Future of Work

Speculations on what’s to come and how to prepare

From the climate crisis to geopolitics to advancements in AI, it’s unclear how the next few decades might impact markets, the concept of work, and how we think about our careers. It feels like the best and the worst time to launch something or make a bold transition. Liminal space presents an ocean of opportunities and the power to shape our futures. If you catch the right wave, you could make a great impact. If you don’t, you may lose the chance to leverage the moment or waste precious resources on something that will not gain traction, achieve relevance, or stand the test of time.

We're gambling whether we do something or wait to see what happens. We’re making bets when we stay in roles/jobs and when we decide to pivot or leap. While that’s always been the case, it’s much more pronounced now than before because we’re aiming at a target that’s forming and moving. 10 years ago, you could shoot your shot and miss by a few feet, in the next decade, you could miss by a mile.

If we’re making bets, we need to make intelligent bets. Intelligent bets combine data and intuition to minimize risk and make informed, impactful decisions. Intelligent bets require us to observe our current reality and synthesize the information we’re perceiving to forecast the direction of our sail. How well we can predict it depends on how well we can connect the dots, uncover insights, and anticipate trends.

Where we’re headed isn’t entirely unknown. History moves in economic, technological, and societal cycles, and much of what lies ahead is informed by what’s already happened. Every major revolution has brought unique opportunities and challenges, inviting or forcing us to adapt. While the current phase of the digital revolution is relatively new and evolving fast, we can predict some of what’s to come based on how technology and automation have already reshaped the ways we live and work.

The complexity we face today is rooted in an inflection point where innovation collides with environmental realities, political instability, and economic shifts. While history offers lessons in how humans adapt and innovate during times of chaos, the scale and interconnectedness of the challenges we’re confronting now are relatively unfamiliar. There’s no clear blueprint for navigating this moment, so we need to be thoughtful and creative in how we respond.

As individuals, our ability to meaningfully contribute to the future depends on how motivated we feel to create it. Creation requires us to think and behave differently, imagine new possibilities, and consider best and worst-case scenarios to prepare for a future where our current ideas of wage work may become a myth of the past. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts, but it has limits. Our minds are often tethered to what we know (or think we know), and failure of imagination doesn’t allow us to fully explore radical or unrealistic realms.

In the long term, the concept of a career will be redefined, but in the short term, we are tasked with preparing ourselves for a future in which our current skills are no longer relevant. Practically, this means upskilling and reskilling, investing in diverse relationships, communities, and networks, exploring new industries, and embracing the possibility that we may not even work in the traditional sense. This may require us to adapt to new ways of making money, spending time, or pursuing roles we’ve never considered.

Remote work was a fascinating simulation that transformed how we engage, produce, and collaborate. By being forced to operate differently, we stretched our imaginations, became more flexible and agile, and considered new career paths. I speculate the future of work, shaped by the last century and current trends, will be a tech-enabled, AI-driven ecosystem where endless marketplaces will facilitate value exchange, with supply and demand defined by the dynamic interplay between technology and human creativity. In other words, we’ll collaborate more with machines and our ‘job’ will be to continuously learn, adapt, and redefine how we’ll provide value.

This change will catalyze a counter-movement, where many will opt out of digital ecosystems and resist machines and algorithms altogether—creating a parallel world where tech-free, in-person, and human-centred products and experiences will be coveted—ushering in a career renaissance where ‘vintage jobs’ will be cool again.

The idea of climbing a ladder with our careers will become as archaic as being an employee at one company for 20+ years. Fame and influence will be democratized through platforms that empower anyone to build and monetize communities, eliminating the gatekeepers. Wealth creation and personal agency will become more accessible as more people choose various forms of entrepreneurship. We’ll see fewer full-time roles and a rise in freelance, part-time, and contract work due to a shift toward project-based engagements and increased demand for flexibility (from both sides). Innovation will belong to those brave enough to create and push boundaries at intersections where various industries and/or diverse challenges converge.

Teams of 1-5 will leverage AI to create products at scale, and we’ll witness the first billion-dollar company by a solopreneur (not advocating for this). Governments will be pressured to invest in helping people upskill and reskill and find ways to financially support those who cannot find work despite educational programs. Institutions and micro-schools will offer fewer multi-year degree programs and more practical, skills-based 6-month certification programs that will enable people to continuously learn and pivot as needed.

30 years ago, you got a degree, started work, maybe pursued graduate education, continued to work, and then retired. In the future, the lines between when and how we learn and when and how we work will become increasingly blurred as we focus on cultivating the skills needed to move society forward. We’ll shift from defining individual purpose to contributing to a shared purpose and learning how to collaborate (not cooperate) to solve burning pain points. Some will refuse to work or reject having a career altogether, and others will redefine what it means to contribute. Instead of defining our Ikigai, we’ll define our ‘career avatars’ with tools, superpowers, and skills to play our roles in the world. .

So, how can we prepare for what may be coming?

Develop Ambiguous Skills

Ambiguous skills are the opposite of specific skills. They’re versatile, flexible, multi-faceted, and able to adapt. Ambiguous skills enable us to shapeshift and step into various roles across different industries. They help future-proof our careers by ensuring we don’t fit into a specific box because that box may disappear or no longer require us. The trick with ambiguous skills is to ensure they’re broad enough to apply across contexts and refined enough to provide tremendous value. Ambiguous skills could be anything from creativity to negotiation to systems thinking—they don’t tell us what someone can deliver, they highlight the mindset and capabilities someone brings to the table, whether they can navigate complexity, and how effectively they’ll solve problems.

Develop Hyperspecialized Expertise

Think super niche skills will be highly coveted because a group of people will need them, and there won’t many who can fill the role. Roles like ‘Metaverse real estate zoning specialist’ or ‘Post-human therapist’ will explore the edge of innovation and human potential. While they seem slightly absurd, they’re not science fiction. We are undoubtedly headed in a direction where people will ‘live’ in the digital world and identify as AI-enhanced beings. This means we’re also headed toward a world where Luddites will revive and form their own vocations. Making competencies like mycology, calligraphy, analog photography legitimate career paths.

Define what ‘gig work’ means to you

Gig work—flexible, contract, and project-based work has grown significantly since the early 2000s, sustained by technology that has made it easier for us to connect with people and opportunities. For some, gig work allows them to design careers on their terms, work fewer hours, and prioritize creative pursuits, leisure, or rest. For others, it’s a means to navigate an unstable job market. Ambiguous skills and hyperspecialized expertise position us for gig work as a lifestyle or in seasons of transition. The need and desire for gig work will only increase as we determine what we can delegate to machines versus humans. It’ll be a bit of learn-as-you-go, where each team/company will experiment with AI tools, let go of human staff, realize the limitations of AI tools, and hire humans again, but likely not full-time.

Build and invest in communities

Communities are interconnected ecosystems where value is exchanged through a dynamic flow of resources, talents, and support. As currency-defining networks, they rely on the group's principles and ethos to determine how to nurture trust, generosity, and reciprocity. There are a million reasons to build and invest in communities (which I will write more about), but as it relates to the future of work and careers, communities, like past villages, will increasingly become environments within which we exist multi-dimensionally. From borrowing tools to co-living to generating revenue, we will look to our trusted community members to complete projects and solve various problems. This is already true for many people, but currently, it’s still possible to do relatively well without a strong community. A decade from now, however, community may shift from being a nice-to-have to a core pillar of safety, security, and stability—not just in our careers but every aspect of our lives.

Learn how to build and operate a business

My big bet is that entrepreneurship will change from a vocation to a fundamental skill, like writing or problem solving, that many people will acquire and integrate into their lives. Think of a business not as a revenue-generating entity that sells products or services, but as a mechanism designed to bring ideas to life, connect them with the right people, and continuously create and sustain value. We’ll shift away from traditional notions of ‘buyers,’ ‘customers,’ and ‘clients’ toward community members who engage with and benefit from our offers. With the rise of niche ‘business-in-a-box’ platforms and the growth of niche communities, these businesses won’t be optimized to scale but will function as adaptive platforms for connection, contribution, and impact.

Overall, I believe careers will become more fluid and flexible, with more people gravitating toward creative and unconventional paths. At some point, we’ll need to make intentional decisions about how much technology we want to integrate into our day-to-day lives. Will we choose human-centred careers, grounded in connection, craft, and community? Or will we adapt to technology-based roles, collaborating with AI in the Metaverse? This choice will be an important one as it may define not just our careers but how we experience life itself.

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