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Will AI Take Your Job in the Next 10 Years? Wrong Question | Vinciane Beauchene | TED

TED12:17Added Aug 30, 2026

As AI agents take over more tasks at work, the question isn’t whether or not humans matter — it’s how we make our impact count. Leadership expert Vinciane Be...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. 00:04Back in the 50s, Alan Turing came up with an idea.
  2. 00:09If you couldn't tell if you were talking to a machine or a human,
  3. 00:14it meant the machine must be intelligent.
  4. 00:17He coined the Turing test.
  5. 00:20Today, most chatbots pass the test easily.
  6. 00:25But here's the catch.
  7. 00:27I believe the test was wrong.
  8. 00:30Because talking isn't what's going to change the world.
  9. 00:34Doing is.
  10. 00:36That's why I ask a slightly different question
  11. 00:39to the leaders I work with.
  12. 00:41On a daily basis, my role is to reshape organizations,
  13. 00:45trying to find the right mix of strategy, tech and talent.
  14. 00:52And my obsession is to make sure
  15. 00:54that talents do not get out of the equation.
  16. 00:58So the question I ask my clients is:
  17. 01:02if an AI could take over all of your team's tasks,
  18. 01:07who would you keep
  19. 01:09and why?
  20. 01:11That question is strategic.
  21. 01:13And the answer matters to me, not just intellectually,
  22. 01:17but because I have two daughters at home.
  23. 01:20They are five and nine.
  24. 01:22And right now, as you can see, they feel invincible.
  25. 01:26But I keep wondering:
  26. 01:28What is the world of work they will step into?
  27. 01:32We need to build a future where humans matter more, not less.
  28. 01:38Now let me try to illustrate how this is playing out in the field.
  29. 01:43A consumer goods client of mine is all in on AI.
  30. 01:48They didn't want to just deploy the next algo.
  31. 01:51They wanted to rethink the selling process itself.
  32. 01:56The trigger was agents.
  33. 01:59Have you heard about agents?
  34. 02:01They are the latest generation of AI:
  35. 02:05more autonomous,
  36. 02:06able to connect across systems,
  37. 02:09to plan, to take action, to learn, to adapt.
  38. 02:12The James Bond of AI.
  39. 02:15And applied to the selling process,
  40. 02:18you get an agent that is able to target the customer,
  41. 02:22make recommendations, negotiate, close the deal.
  42. 02:26All this with no human intervention.
  43. 02:30A fully autonomous sales engine.
  44. 02:34And it was technically feasible.
  45. 02:37But then an exec asked,
  46. 02:40"Hmm, if the machine does all of this,
  47. 02:45then what remains for humans?"
  48. 02:47This cracked everything open
  49. 02:49because when we looked deeper at their most loyal customers,
  50. 02:54we saw they weren’t sticking around because of prices or products
  51. 02:58but because of how the sales rep made them feel.
  52. 03:03So we flipped the model around.
  53. 03:06Humans were no longer going to be about pushing products.
  54. 03:10They were going to be about building relationship,
  55. 03:13belonging, loyalty.
  56. 03:17Very concretely, this meant new skills,
  57. 03:20new incentives, a very different mindset.
  58. 03:24Well it changed everything.
  59. 03:26But it worked.
  60. 03:28Because in the age of AI, human value isn't gone.
  61. 03:33It's just moved.
  62. 03:35Now I’m not talking about copilots anymore.
  63. 03:38For a while the narrative has been
  64. 03:41AI will augment us, not replace us.
  65. 03:45Well this is not where the tech is going today.
  66. 03:48And I believe we have real hard work to do
  67. 03:51if we want this narrative to stay true.
  68. 03:55So I'll say a few words about what I think needs to be done
  69. 03:58in a second.
  70. 03:59But first, let me tackle three myths that I think are holding us back.
  71. 04:05I call them "head in the sand" ideology.
  72. 04:10Number one.
  73. 04:12"All of this is overblown. We'll adapt."
  74. 04:16Yes. We've adapted to electricity,
  75. 04:20the industrial revolution, the internet.
  76. 04:23But we've done so on the back of generations
  77. 04:26that did not have the training nor the time to adapt.
  78. 04:30And in the case of this revolution, time is of the essence.
  79. 04:35You may think you have time because agents are just emerging.
  80. 04:39And it's a fact.
  81. 04:40Our research shows that today only 13 percent of companies
  82. 04:45have embedded agents in their workflows.
  83. 04:49But tech moves exponentially.
  84. 04:51Humans, they crawl linearly.
  85. 04:54If you don't prepare now, you'll struggle to keep up.
  86. 04:59And I'm not talking about science fiction.
  87. 05:01I'm not talking about AGI,
  88. 05:03artificial general intelligence,
  89. 05:06this moment where AI will be smarter than us.
  90. 05:10I'm referring here to ACI,
  91. 05:13artificial capable intelligence.
  92. 05:17The moment when AI will be able to take on
  93. 05:21ambiguous, complex goals
  94. 05:24with minimal oversight.
  95. 05:26And while AGI is speculative,
  96. 05:29ACI is a deadline.
  97. 05:32While we spend hours debating about superintelligence and consciousness,
  98. 05:38we miss the milestones that ACI is meeting with increasing frequency.
  99. 05:44ACI will change how work is done and by whom.
  100. 05:49Let's shape it, not wait and see.
  101. 05:52Now myth number two.
  102. 05:54"Soft skills are our sweet spot."
  103. 05:59Yes, it's lovely to believe
  104. 06:01that empathy, creativity are uniquely ours.
  105. 06:06But evidence says otherwise.
  106. 06:09More and more humans like to interact with AI
  107. 06:14because they feel it's more empathic.
  108. 06:18And why not?
  109. 06:19I mean, AI
  110. 06:22doesn't get tired,
  111. 06:24doesn't get cranky,
  112. 06:26doesn't judge you.
  113. 06:28So this moat we thought was ours,
  114. 06:31it's shrinking.
  115. 06:33And we need to stop asking what AI can't do
  116. 06:36and focus on where humans make a difference and why.
  117. 06:43At this stage,
  118. 06:45I'm sure you would love me to come up
  119. 06:47with the list of human qualities that will remain ours forever.
  120. 06:53But my point is, there is no universal list.
  121. 06:56Each company needs to figure it out based on its strategic positioning.
  122. 07:02This is hard, uncomfortable work,
  123. 07:05but it's work that you as leaders need to take on.
  124. 07:10Now myth number three.
  125. 07:13My preferred one. I'm French.
  126. 07:14"We need to protect jobs."
  127. 07:18Yes. I see where this one is coming from.
  128. 07:21Today, 41 percent of employees believe
  129. 07:25that their job will vanish in the next decade because of AI.
  130. 07:30But protecting jobs is like anchoring a boat in a storm.
  131. 07:34Jobs are fixed.
  132. 07:37The human potential to grow and adapt, on the other hand, is not.
  133. 07:41This is where we need to invest.
  134. 07:44The challenge is our organizations are not geared for that today.
  135. 07:48Org charts are static.
  136. 07:49Career paths are narrow.
  137. 07:51Training is occasional.
  138. 07:53This system will fall apart
  139. 07:55the day that the boundaries of jobs start melting away fast.
  140. 08:01So what do we need to do?
  141. 08:05Let me take you to an ideal company.
  142. 08:08Not a theoretical one, just the blend of the boldest clients I've worked with.
  143. 08:14First, they don't start with tech.
  144. 08:18They start with strategy.
  145. 08:21They focus on the outcomes that truly differentiate them on the market.
  146. 08:26They understand how agents
  147. 08:28will allow them to deliver against those outcomes
  148. 08:31in totally different ways.
  149. 08:34And they look at where people still make a difference for the better.
  150. 08:39As you can see, this is not incremental redesign of your operating model.
  151. 08:45It's radical AI-first reinvention.
  152. 08:49And we did this work for an industrial goods client of mine.
  153. 08:53Imagine having to go through 50 “hack a future” workshops,
  154. 08:57looking at how AI is going to disrupt each of your businesses,
  155. 09:01each of your function.
  156. 09:03Comfortable? It is not.
  157. 09:06But it allowed the leaders to align on a vision of where agents win,
  158. 09:11people matter and how best to pair them.
  159. 09:15Now once you have this vision,
  160. 09:17you want to translate it into a workforce model.
  161. 09:21How many people do I need?
  162. 09:23With what skills?
  163. 09:25No more guesswork, just informed, intentional reinvention.
  164. 09:30A multiyear skills forecast.
  165. 09:33And this is something we built
  166. 09:35for a consumer goods client that was facing a massive challenge.
  167. 09:39Imagine having to reformulate your entire product portfolio
  168. 09:44while keeping the leadership and innovation.
  169. 09:47Of course, AI unlocked the productivity that was required,
  170. 09:52but the work was much deeper.
  171. 09:54They needed to reinvent the role of the researcher.
  172. 09:58From chemist to data-driven biologist,
  173. 10:01from solo expert to multifunctional teammates.
  174. 10:05And they made it happen
  175. 10:07because they mapped very precisely the future skills that they needed,
  176. 10:11and they built a very effective upskilling and mobility engine.
  177. 10:17Then you want to publicly commit
  178. 10:21to taking your talents to their fullest potential.
  179. 10:25Now I know what you're going to tell me.
  180. 10:27Vinciane, why would we invest in talent
  181. 10:30if an AI can do their job faster, cheaper
  182. 10:35and without complaining?
  183. 10:38Well because the day that interacting with an AI becomes the new norm,
  184. 10:43a commodity,
  185. 10:45the interaction with humans is going to take an entire new meaning.
  186. 10:50Trust, authenticity, accountability.
  187. 10:55Those are the values we will anchor on.
  188. 10:58So the smartest companies will invest in talent.
  189. 11:03Not only tech talent, all talent.
  190. 11:06Not once, but systematically.
  191. 11:09And they will protect time to learn.
  192. 11:13Because today, while freelancers spend on average four hours per week learning,
  193. 11:18employees spend
  194. 11:20none.
  195. 11:22So no, the future isn't about being more human.
  196. 11:26It's about building the systems
  197. 11:28that will allow humans to do what matters most.
  198. 11:31This is not a story about job loss.
  199. 11:35It is a story about human differentiation.
  200. 11:39AI will keep on climbing. That is not up to us.
  201. 11:42But how fast we climb with it, that is up to us.
  202. 11:47So we need to stop asking: Will there still be jobs for humans?
  203. 11:52And focus on answering: What do we want humans to be best at?
  204. 11:59Because in the age of AI,
  205. 12:01being human isn't a fallback,
  206. 12:04it's a practice.
  207. 12:06Let's make it exceptional.
  208. 12:10Thank you.
  209. 12:11(Applause)
Will AI Take Your Job in the Next 10 Years? Wrong Question | Vinciane Beauchene | TED — Transcriptly