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laire has worked as a PR at a major consulting firm, based in London, for six years. The 34-year-old enjoys her job and earns a comfortable salary, but in the past six months, she’s started to feel apprehensive about the future of her career. The reason: artificial intelligence. “I don’t think the quality of the work that I’m producing could be matched by a machine just yet,” says Claire, whose last name is being withheld to protect her job security. “But at the same time, I’m amazed at how quickly ChatGPT has become so sophisticated. Give it a few more years, and I can absolutely imagine a world in which a bot does my job just as well as I can. I hate to think what that might mean for my employability.” In recent years, as headlines about robots stealing human jobs have proliferated – and as generative AI tools like ChatGPT have quickly become more accessible – some workers report starting to feel anxious about their futures and whether the skills they have will be relevant to the labour market in years to come. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report showing that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. Last year, PwC’s annual global workforce survey showed that almost a third of respondents said they were worried about the prospect of their role being replaced by technology in three years. “I think a lot of creatives are concerned,” says Alys Marshall, a 29-year-old copywriter based in Bristol, UK. “We’re all just hoping that our clients will recognise [our] value, and choose the authenticity of [a human] over the price and convenience of AI tools.” Now, career coaches and HR experts are saying that although some anxiety might be justified, employees need to focus on what they can control. Instead of panicking about possibly losing their jobs to machines, they should invest in learning how to work alongside technology. If they treat it as a resource and not a threat, add the experts, they’ll make themselves more valuable to potential employers – and feel less anxious. Fear of the unknown For some people, generative AI tools feel as if they’ve come on fast and furious. OpenAI’s ChatGPT broke out seemingly overnight, and the “AI arms race” is ramping up more every day, creating continuing uncertainty for workers. Carolyn Montrose, a career coach and lecturer at Columbia University in New York, acknowledges the pace of technological innovation and change can be scary. “It is normal to feel anxiety about the impact of AI because its evolution is fluid, and there are many unknown application factors,” she says. But as unnerving as the new technology is, she also says workers don’t necessarily have to feel existential dread. People have the power to make their own decisions about how much they worry: they can either “choose to feel anxious about AI, or empowered to learn about it and use it to their advantage”. PwC’s Scott Likens, who specialises in understanding issues around trust and technology, echoes this. “Technology advancements have shown us that, yes, technology has the potential to automate or streamline work processes. However, with the right set of skills, individuals are often able to progress alongside these advancements,” he says. “In order to feel less anxious about the rapid adoption of AI, employees must lean into the technology. Education and training [are] key for employees to learn about AI and what it can do for their particular role as well as help them develop new skills. Instead of shying away from AI, employees should plan to embrace and educate.”