It is no secret that the job market is changing. While not all can be attributed to AI, with globalization and other factors well in play, AI is still a massive element, and also one whose future impact is unclear. It seems that every subsequent release of a foundational AI model (such as the recently announced Open AI o3-preview), shows AI dominating topics that it previously could not, begging the question of how far it can go. In the middle of this however, evidence is emerging that two classes of jobs (or roles) are thriving with AI, and seemly able to thrive more with every subsequent AI advance. These roles are Entrepreneur and Researcher.

The Effect AI Has On Roles

To better understand why these two roles benefit, it is useful to consider what happens to a job role when AI comes in.

• Imagine you are a manager. Your team has a range of deliverables to your organization and a budget with which to execute them. You employ humans and use tools to meet your obligations.
• As tools become more capable with AI, you will have both the ability (and likely the responsibility) to leverage the tools to meet the deliverables at lower cost – which often translates to fewer people being paid salaries. The cheaper the tools become, the more pressure you will be under to apply them to offset wages.
• If your organization gives you more deliverables, you may be able to avoid cutting headcount. However, this requires that the organization actively remap the deliverables or decide to do more. This is a hard and slow process for larger companies. It is much easier to keep the same deliverables and ask that the cost be reduced.

For a manager who does not have the authority to “raise the ceiling”, i.e. do more, they will be under pressure to work with less. We are seeing a slowdown in hiring, which may be attributed at least in part to this trend.

Entrepreneurs And Researchers

What makes entrepreneurs and researchers different? While these are two very different roles, they have one thing in common. It is easier in these roles to expand your goals as your abilities to deliver improve. In fact, in both roles, success is measured by your ability to expand. In entrepreneurship that expansion is measured as company growth. In research, it is measured by solving a larger problem. Given this, as AI capabilities expand (in other words as the floor rises), you can raise your targets (raise the ceiling), giving the humans in the middle still something to do. Articles like this and this show how AI is helping entrepreneurs and researchers do more, focusing on strategic items and increasing value as time frees up from automating routine tasks

So, Only Two Job Types Left?

Not at all. First of all, it is very likely that AI driven transformations will create new job roles that we cannot imagine yet. Second, even the entrepreneur and researcher do not have to be pure roles. Not everyone will be a standalone researcher or a standalone entrepreneur. Our global ecosystem cannot manage the entire workforce becoming one or other of these. It is more the nature of a role. If your role has some element of these, or your company has some element of these, and an organizational structure where this element can pass through the layers relatively easily, there is more opportunity for individuals in the company to expand their scope to offset the power of the tools, thereby ensuring that they have value to add as the tools become more capable.

Which One Should I Choose?

While many roles are exactly one of these two, there are also far more that have elements of one or both. The key is not to look at job advertisements and search for these two words. The key is to find specific roles within your areas of interest that have elements of at least one of these in that the roles allow you to expand your horizons and responsibilities as the tools you leverage become more powerful. These two roles both emphasize the ability to create with tools rather than be a user of tools. That is the element you should seek in a job.

That said, to choose between one of these two roles, is also a matter of personal preference. While both value expansion of thought, creativity, and problem-solving, they do it in very different ways. Researchers are often focused on solving problems at a foundational level and not always with an eye toward immediate application. Entrepreneurs are focused on creating revenue-generating applications that solve problems. Both require solving hard problems and both add value, but the problems and the value generated tend to be very different. Which one appeals to you will depend on your personal preference.

So How Do I Become One of These?

The first step is to understand which appeals to you personally. Do you enjoy solving hard problems and building on the work of others? Do you enjoy the challenging task of really understanding a customer’s problem and finding a way to solve it that works in the market? Answering these types of questions will help you determine which direction is right for you. Again, the key is not necessarily to find a job with this title, it is to find a role that has elements of one or both of these.

Finding The Bigger Problem

There is always a bigger problem to be solved. In a research world, this is usually something new to be found, whether it is a better understanding of a known problem or a better solution. In entrepreneurship, it is about expanding business results, whether that is through helping more customers, building a better product, solving new problems, or more. If your role allows you to expand your horizons and responsibilities as the tools expand capability beneath you, you can grow with the tools rather than becoming replaced by them.