What if I do need to cut costs?

Say so, and plan it in the open. Dress a layoff up as an AI rollout and the team will know, and the ones who stay will never trust the tools.

Which jobs are safest?

Anything with judgment, relationships, or hands, and anything that is different every time. Once the typing is gone, that is most of most jobs.

How do I explain this to my staff?

In a room, with their own work on the wall, and let them pick what gets automated first. A memo gets you the opposite reaction.

Will my team need to learn to code?

No. They need to learn to check the robot's work, and they already know how, from checking the intern's.

What does growing without hiring look like?

Same headcount, more orders, fewer evenings. One client's small sales team has 49 automated workflows doing its research every day.

Is AI going to replace my employees?

In most businesses I work with, no. The owners want to grow without adding headcount, not cut the people they have. Done right, AI takes the worst hour out of everyone's day, the people stay, and the company handles more work with the same team.

Done right, AI takes the worst hour out of everyone's day, and the people stay.

Jared Lukes, Minneapolis consultant

Owners ask me this quietly. Employees ask me on the first break of a workshop. Same question, different fear.

Are business owners trying to replace people with AI?

The ones I work with are not. Nearly word for word, they say "I want to grow without bringing on more people" and "I do not intend to let anybody go." That describes most small and mid-sized companies in Minnesota right now. They are busy, they cannot find good people, and the people they have are stretched.

For them, AI is how the same ten people handle the work of fifteen.

What does AI take off people's plates?

The boring hour. Every job has one. The customer service rep who retypes the same cancellation into three systems. The bookkeeper keying invoices by hand for four hours a day at month end. The warehouse guy walking the floor to pull packages that were cancelled after they printed. The salesperson spending forty minutes researching a lead before the first call.

AI is good at those hours, and nobody will miss them. What is left needs a person: the judgment call, the angry customer, the relationship, the thing that is weird this time.

Does AI replace the person or help them?

It is how I explain it to a room. You can put a robot in your business two ways. One does the job instead of the person. The other is a robot suit the person climbs into, faster and stronger, lifting things they could not lift before. Same technology, very different company.

I only build the suit. The person stays in it, makes the calls, and hits send. They are just suddenly very hard to keep up with.

Where does replacement happen?

Two places.

Jobs that were already only typing. If a role is nothing but moving data from one screen to another, that role changes. Usually the person moves to the work that was never getting done, but the owner has to decide that deliberately.
Companies that rush. They buy a tool, cut the team, and find out the tool cannot handle a Tuesday in March. Then they hire back at a worse rate with a worse reputation, and I get the call.

How do I bring AI in without a panic?

Do it with the team. The workshop is a day in a room with the people who do the work. Their jobs go on the wall, they point at the parts they hate, and they rank what gets fixed first. By lunch most of the fear is gone, because the thing being automated is what they were complaining about last week.

Then say it out loud: nobody is losing their job over this. If that is not true, do not hold the workshop. Work out your plan first.

Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.