How AI Is Changing Our Work Reality
Best-selling author Dan Goleman argues how AI is redefining what it means to be “adaptable.”
Daniel Goleman is author of the international best-seller Emotional Intelligence and Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day. He is a regular contributor to Korn Ferry.
The jury is out on the long-term impacts of AI. Some say the technology is the main driver behind high unemployment rates among new graduates and has already destroyed thousands of jobs. Others point to the entirely new roles AI is creating—bringing in talent to build, implement, govern, and work alongside these rapidly evolving systems.
Any way you slice it, we are living through a liminal period–a time of learning to expect the unexpected.
This is shifting the way we think about adaptability. Adaptability is no longer just a competency for adjusting plans and mental models in order to better cope with change—it is about shifting some of our most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human: to have work, livelihoods, interests, purpose, and money.
This is why people like Erik Brynjolfsson, a Stanford economist, have called for better ways to measure the spread and impact of AI. Given how seismic AI disruption could be, economists argue that now is the time to design policies that help displaced workers rather than waiting until disruption has already occurred. It is a lesson many previous technological transitions failed to teach us: Planning ahead matters.
Humans are remarkably good at worrying about the future without adequately preparing for it. The assumption is that the more we know, the better we can plan. We devote enormous energy to predicting what is coming while spending far less time developing the inner capacities required to meet it.
Head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, predicted that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within a matter of years. Vinod Khosla suggested that by 2030 AI could replace 80% of jobs.
Whether any of these forecasts prove accurate is almost beside the point. AI will move more quickly than any technological innovation we have known to date. Warnings are beginning to suggest that its effects could be larger than the Industrial Revolution but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. Generative AI has become one of the fastest-adopted consumer technologies in history, and organizations across nearly every sector are already experimenting with how it reshapes work and decision-making. The question is no longer whether AI will influence our working lives, but how deeply and how quickly.
Though the forecasts differ, they do point in the same direction: AI is no longer simply another technology to adopt, but a force that changes how work is organized, how value is created, and how people understand their own relevance. The challenge, then, is no longer simply technological; it is deeply human.
This is where emotional intelligence becomes more than a leadership competency—it becomes one of the essential capacities for navigating profound transition. If adaptability is no longer simply about adjusting our behavior, but about reorganizing our relationship to work, identity, and uncertainty, then leaders will need far more than technical expertise. They will need emotional self-awareness to recognize how uncertainty, fear, and grief shape their own reactions. They will need emotional self-control to resist rushing toward false certainty simply because ambiguity feels uncomfortable. They will need adaptability—not merely as the willingness to change plans, but as the capacity to continually revise their mental models as the landscape itself evolves. And they will need a positive outlook: the capacity to see possibility, sustain hope, and remain resourceful even when the path ahead remains unclear.
Perhaps most importantly, they will need empathy and organizational awareness. Technological change is never experienced equally: some people will feel energized by new possibilities while others will experience loss, confusion, or threats to their identity and livelihood. Leaders who can recognize these differing realities— and create the conditions for honest conversation, trust, and shared learning—will be far better equipped to help people navigate what comes next than those who focus exclusively on strategy or implementation.
Against this backdrop, debates over AI washing begin to feel beside the point.
"I don't think A.I. has hit the labor market yet, and I don't think it's radically changed corporate productivity yet, either, but I think it's coming," said Daniel Rock, a University of Pennsylvania economist who has studied the economic impact of artificial intelligence.
Says Brynjolfsson, "I still see a big gap there, a big mismatch, and I'm kind of worried that we're not going to be ready for the tsunami that's coming," he said.
Yet another economist, Anton Korinek, points out, "In the past, our social safety net was designed to help people over transitory shocks. This one might actually be a more permanent shock."
If so, adaptability itself needs to be redefined. It is no longer simply the capacity to endure a difficult season or readjust while we wait for the dust to settle. Instead, it is the ongoing practice of reorganizing our inner and outer worlds around realities that continue to evolve. That may be the real challenge AI presents: not simply learning to use a new technology, but continually becoming the kind of people who can meet a future that refuses to stand still.
Co-written by Elizabeth Solomon
Click here to learn more about Daniel Goleman's Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence.
