AI took my job — but not how you'd expect

"AI took my job."

That's true. But not the way you're imagining.

No robot replaced me. No algorithm learned creative direction. The work I do — creative leadership, brand strategy, website redesign — still matters. Businesses still need clarity. Humans are still required.

What changed wasn't the need for the work. What changed was the math.

Two weeks ago, I was unexpectedly laid off. I've been working with AI since it became a thing — baking it into process, helping the company adopt tools, making our team faster. And it worked. Timelines got shorter. More could be done by fewer people. Eventually, demand for the kind of project-based work I led didn't keep up with the efficiency we'd built — and at the same time, the perceived value of that work dropped.

I helped make myself unnecessary. Not because my work didn't matter, but because the economics shifted underneath me.

When the Math Moves, People Go

AI lowered the friction of producing websites, and the barrier to "good enough" has dropped fast. At the same time and relatedly, demand for full-scale redesign projects has softened. And when efficiency goes up and demand isn’t keeping up, something gives.

Website redesign work is episodic. High-impact, high-quality, but it resets every quarter. Other parts of a business can scale — recurring services, performance-driven offerings, products with predictable margins. 

When AI compresses the cost of project-based work and another part of the business scales more predictably, the decision isn't philosophical. It's financial. The other side doesn't have to be broken. It just has to be less attractive.

That's how roles disappear. Not because the work lost meaning, but because the business found a cleaner path to continued growth. Businesses chase margin, not sentiment.

The Hype Is Doing More Damage Than the Tech

It's not just that AI makes parts of the work faster. The hype around AI has reshaped how leaders perceive digital work entirely.

When every headline says AI can build websites, write copy, and automate marketing, it doesn't just change tooling. It changes how expensive creative work feels — even when the AI output isn't comparable in quality.

Perception moves faster than reality. And perception sets budgets.

Once executives believe digital production can be automated, the premium on custom work shrinks. The conversation shifts from "How do we do this well?" to "How lean can we get?"

AI doesn’t have to replace the work. It just has to create enough doubt to compress investment. It’s a force multiplier — not just of productivity, but of perception.

When budgets shift, org charts follow.

This Is Bigger Than One Layoff

The same pattern shows up anywhere work touches information, design, writing, or production. Cost of output drops. Budgets tighten. Layers thin. Roles combine. Work that used to justify a position gets absorbed or handed to someone with the right subscription.

It's not replacement. It's reallocation. And reallocation is quieter, harder to read, and already underway.

So Now What?

The question isn't "How do I make my job AI-proof?"

It's: What do you do when your work still matters, but the market needs fewer people to do it?

The old playbook — specialize harder, work faster, prove your value — assumes the problem is that your work isn't good enough. That's not the problem. You can outperform in a role that's become uneconomical, and it won't make enough difference. Excellence doesn't override a shifting balance sheet.

The harder question is what comes next. How do you build a career as an employee when any role can be restructured out from under you the next time the technology shifts? When the ground keeps moving, digging in isn't a strategy. You have to learn to move with the terrain.

That's what I'm working on now. And that's what comes next.