Name: Will AI Take Your Job in the Next 10 Years? Wrong Question | Vinciane Beauchene | TED
Uploaded: 2026-03-25T21:39:15.000Z
Duration: 12 min 18 s
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Back in the '50s, Alan Turing came up with an idea.

The second conditional

If you couldn't tell if you were talking to a machine or a human, it meant the machine must be intelligent.

Today, most chatbots pass the test easily.

But here's the catch: I believe the test was wrong.

Because talking isn't what's going to change the world; doing is.

That's why I ask a slightly different question to the leaders I work with.

On a daily basis, my role is to reshape organizations trying to find the right mix of strategy, tech, and

And my obsession is to make sure that talents do not get out of the equation.

So the question I ask my clients is: If an AI could take over all of your team's tasks, who would you keep, and

And the answer matters to me not just intellectually, but because I have two daughters at home.

And right now, as you can see, they feel invincible.

But I keep wondering: what is the world of work they will step into?

We need to build a future where humans matter more, not less.

Now, let me try to illustrate how this is playing out in the field.

A consumer goods client of mine is all in on AI.

They didn't want to just deploy the next Algo; they wanted to rethink the selling process itself.

They are the latest generation of AI: more autonomous, able to connect across systems, to plan, to take action, to learn, to adapt—the James Bond of AI.

And apply it to the selling process, you get an agent that is able to target the customer, make recommendations, negotiate, close the deal—all this with no human intervention.

But then an exec asked: "Hmm, if the machine does all of this, then what remains for humans?" This cracked everything open.

Because when we looked deeper at their most loyal customers, we saw they weren't sticking around because prices or products, but

because of how the sales rep made them feel.

So we flipped the model around: humans were no longer going to be about pushing products;

they were going to be about building relationship, belonging, loyalty.

Very concretely, this meant new skills, new incentives, a very different mindset.

Well, it changed everything, but it worked.

Because in the age of AI, human value isn't gone; it's just moved.

Now, I'm not talking about copilots anymore.

For a while, the narrative has been: AI will augment us, not replace us.

Well, this is not where the tech is going today.

And I believe we have real hard work to do if we want this narrative to stay true.

So I'll say a few words about what I think needs to be done in a second,

but first, let me tackle three myths that I think are holding us back.

Yes, we've adapted to electricity, the Industrial Revolution, the Internet.

But we've done so on the back of generations that did not have the training nor the time to adapt.

And in the case of this revolution, time is of the essence.

You may think you have time because agents are just emerging.

Our research shows that today, only 13 percent of companies have embedded agents in their workflows.

If you don't prepare now, you'll struggle to keep up.

And I'm not talking about science fiction.

I'm not talking about AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, this moment where AI will be smarter than us.

I'm referring here to ACI: Artificial Capable Intelligence.

The moment when AI will be able to take on ambiguous, complex goals with minimal oversight.

And while AGI is speculative, ACI is a deadline.

While we spend hours debating about superintelligence and consciousness, we miss the milestones that ACI is meeting with increasing frequency.

ACI will change how work is done, and by whom.

Now, myth number two: soft skills are our sweet spot.

Yes, it's lovely to believe that empathy and creativity are uniquely ours.

More and more, humans like to interact with AI because they feel it's more empathic.

I mean, AI doesn't get tired, doesn't get cranky, doesn't judge you.

So this moat we thought was ours, it's shrinking.

And we need to stop asking what AI can't do and focus on where humans make a difference and why.

At this stage, I'm sure you would love me to come up with the list of human qualities that will remain ours forever.

But my point is: there is no universal list.

Each company needs to figure it out based on its strategic positioning.

This is hard, uncomfortable work, but it's work that you, as leaders, need to take on.

Now, myth number three—my preferred one, I'm French—we need to protect jobs.

Yes, I see where this one is coming from.

Today, 41 percent of employees believe that their job will vanish in the next decade because of AI.

But protecting jobs is like anchoring a boat in a storm.

The human potential to grow and adapt, on the other hand, is not.

The challenge is: our organizations are not geared for that today.

Our charts are static, career paths are narrow, training is occasional.

This system will fall apart the day that the boundaries of jobs start melting away fast.

Not a theoretical one, just the blend of the boldest clients I've worked with.

They focus on the outcomes that truly differentiate them on the market.

They understand our agents; we allow them to deliver against those outcomes in totally different ways.

And they look at where people still make a difference for the better.

As you can see, this is not incremental redesign of your operating model.

And we did this work for an industrial goods client of mine.

Imagine having to go through 50 Hacker Future workshops, looking at how AI is going to disrupt each of your businesses, each of your functions.

But it allowed the leaders to align on a vision of where agents win, people matter,

Now, once you have this vision, you want to translate it into a workforce model.