Why the future of work may be less predictable — and why knowing who you are may be one of the most useful forms of career resilience.
A few years ago, we talked about AI disruption as something that was coming. There were reports, conference panels and predictions about which jobs might disappear. Then most of us went back to work.
I’m not sure we can treat it as hypothetical any more.
Ask your friends what is happening inside their companies. Ask what they’re hearing about restructures, hiring freezes, automation, productivity targets and shrinking teams. Most of us now seem to know people who have been made redundant, are worried about their role, or are trying to re-enter a job market they haven’t had to navigate for years.
And increasingly, companies are saying publicly what is changing. In May 2026, Reuters reported that Standard Chartered planned to remove more than 7,000 jobs by 2030, including 15% of its corporate-function roles, while increasing its use of AI and automation. On 20 October, NAB announced plans to reduce its internal workforce by up to 2,500 roles — around 6% — as part of an explicit effort to simplify its operating model. In February, Reuters reported that WiseTech planned around 2,000 cuts — roughly 29% of its global workforce — during a two-year AI-led restructuring.
Not every redundancy is caused by AI. Companies restructure for many reasons. But focusing only on whether AI caused a particular redundancy risks missing the more important shift.
The operating model is changing.
The question businesses are asking
Building a new business has made that increasingly obvious to me. Activities that might once have required additional employees, agencies or specialist support can now be performed — or substantially supported — through software, automation and AI.
That doesn’t mean those professions disappear. It means the economics of organising work have changed.
Large organisations are asking the same questions at scale: what genuinely requires a permanent employee? What can be automated or centralised? Where can technology allow one person to do more? What specialist capability can be bought only when it is needed?
NAB’s announcement is particularly revealing because it is framed in precisely those terms: simplifying structure, reducing duplication and broadening leadership responsibilities. That is an operating-model question, not simply a technology question.
And it is why this isn’t confined to entry-level work. When an operating model changes, management layers, specialist teams and senior roles can all be affected.
Perhaps the more useful question is not: “Will AI take my job?” It is: “If the operating model changes around me, where does my value still fit?”
When the title disappears
That can be surprisingly difficult to answer after 15 or 20 years becoming very good at one particular corporate life. You may know your role, industry and achievements extremely well. But if someone suddenly asks, “What do you actually want to do next?”, the answer may be less obvious.
What are you particularly good at outside your job description? What gives you energy? What do people consistently seek you out for? And who are you when the company name and job title come off the front of the sentence?
I think this is becoming an underestimated form of career preparedness.
Solid, but nimble
The answer isn’t to abandon corporate careers or reinvent yourself every six months. It is to develop an identity that is solid, but nimble.
Solid enough to understand what you value, what you’re capable of and what you bring. Nimble enough that those things don’t have to be expressed through one employer, one title or even one form of work.
The same person might, across a career, be an executive, consultant, fractional leader, founder, adviser or something they haven’t encountered yet. The container changes without requiring them to lose their sense of self.
At the start of 2025, around three quarters of the UK’s private-sector businesses employed nobody beyond their owners. That doesn’t mean everybody should start a business. It does show how much economic activity already exists outside the conventional large-employer model.
Don’t wait for the wave
Most redundancy preparation begins with updating a CV. That matters. But perhaps the deeper preparation begins earlier.
The best redundancy preparation may not begin with knowing what job you want next. It may begin with knowing who you are without the one you have now.
You can’t know exactly how AI will affect your profession or control your employer’s next operating model. But you can understand yourself before somebody else’s decision forces the question.
Think of it like waiting for a wave. You don’t control when it arrives or how big it will be. But there is a difference between already being on the board, aware of your position and ready to move — and noticing the wave only when it is already on top of you.
The future of work may be uncertain. Your sense of who you are doesn’t need to be.
That question — who am I when the familiar labels fall away? — also sits at the heart of my book Who Am I Allowed to Become?, which explores identity, change and the permission we give ourselves to build a different next chapter.
It is also the thinking behind Identity Builds Reinvention™, the approach I use at JB Reinvent™. Across five stages — Recognise, Rediscover, Rebuild, Reconnect and Reinvent — we explore who you are, what matters to you and how that understanding can help you navigate meaningful change.
If this is a question you’re beginning to think about, explore JB Reinvent™ or start with a free 15-minute conversation.
Clarity. Direction. A more meaningful next chapter.
Explore: JB Reinvent™ | Who Am I Allowed to Become?
References and further reading
• Reuters, 24 February 2026 — WiseTech to axe a third of global workforce in two-year AI pivot