years before chatgpt, genai and nextgen ai were part of our vocabulary, i was writing about the impacts of ai and digitization on your career.

Scroll through this page, and you could be forgiven for thinking I had a sense of what was to come when, in June 2017, I wrote, “Will the office empty out as people work remotely?” and “… would or could you work from home?”

DOES YOUR WORKPLACE HAVE AI-RELATED GUIDELINES OR POLICIES?

There are both opportunities and risks associated with the use of AI. On February 1, 2024, I wrote about a court hearing in which a lawyer allegedly presented ChatGPT-produced case law that didn’t exist. That’s one significant reputational hit. You may also want to check my LinkedIn video on this matter.

On LinkedIn, I asked people – generally, and in a popular LI group – in February 2024 whether their respective employers had incorporated AI-related guidelines or policies. The results could represent cause for concern.

“Digital Disruption: Will the Office Empty Out as People Work Remotely?”

“… and would or could you work from home?”

Believe it or not, these are headlines I wrote in June 2017. It’s not that I had foresight on what would unfold less than three years later. Rather, these headlines and accompanying articles are illustrative of the future-focused approach I bring to my writing and training.

I’d worked remotely as early as 2006 and, in 2017, wrote a series of articles in which I interviewed assistants from different continents on the concept of remote work.

“rock, paper … digital”: portals,INTRANETS AND MORE

In another article in my 2017 Digital Disruption series, I highlighted a number of ways in which assistants could take advantage of technology, and again interviewed my international panel. This time, I asked panelists Sofie Koark (Sweden), MistiLynn Loken (USA), Janice Parker (now back in Australia), Helen Rees (England) and Julia Schmidt (Norway) about the extent to which their offices relied on tech. Almost three years before we began using Teams and Zoom, we also looked at portals and other changes to the way we conduct meetings.

DIGITIZATION AND AI: ASSISTANTS’ PERSPECTIVES

Think of how dramatically world has changed since I asked readers in early 2019 for your views on digitization and AI. Have a look at peoples’ pre-pandemic perspectives on technology. At that point, 40% of respondents did not anticipate technology would change the manner in which they’d execute responsibilities over the next two years. We know how that turned out!”

THE MAJORITY OF ASSISTANTS ARE OPEN TO CHANGE

In a 2019 Weekend Poll, I asked readers how you feel about tech advances and their implications on your careers, and 58% said you’re very comfortable with change. This was three years before the term ChatGPT entered our vocabularies.

A whopping 47% said you were pleased about the possibility of tech/digitization changing your jobs, thinking it would create opportunities to add value in different ways. 31% said you were reading and learning all you could to prepare for change, and another 18% said you were cautiously curious.

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