After tons of bleak predictions about job losses in the age of AI, some new reports are finally painting a different picture: one that doesn't just focus on what we stand to lose, but what we might gain.
Two new deeply researched pieces go beyond the hand-wringing headlines. Instead of asking "What jobs will AI eliminate?", they ask a more hopeful, actionable question:
What jobs (and skills) will AI create?
I spoke with Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 155 of The Artificial Intelligence Show about these new roles, and what they mean for knowledge workers.
The first report comes from The New York Times, where former editorial director at Wired, Robert Capps, outlines three arenas where humans remain essential, even as AI gets smarter:
Trust, integration, and taste.
These aren't abstract ideals. They're job categories with real-world implications—and fast-emerging roles.
As AI generates everything from legal contracts to analytical reports, someone needs to take responsibility for what the machine spits out, says Capps. That creates a burgeoning need for professionals who act as quality control and ethical oversight. Think roles like AI auditors, trust directors, and legal guarantors.
Roetzer tied this directly to a topic from Episode 152: the AI verification gap.
"If you're going to publish something under your name or under your company's name, you have to be able to stand behind that," he says. "You have to take responsibility for everything within in."
That responsibility can't be automated.
From compliance officers to consistency coordinators, a whole new class of roles is emerging to verify what AI creates. These people don't just check boxes—they ensure accountability in an environment where algorithms make decisions but can't own them.
Integration is where the technical meets the strategic. AI systems don't implement themselves. Someone needs to select the right tools, fine-tune them with internal data, and fix them when things go sideways.
Enter the AI integrators, AI plumbers, assessors, and even personality directors—individuals tasked with embedding AI effectively within organizations. These aren't hypothetical roles. Companies like Quora are already hiring for them.
Roetzer cited a recent job posting by Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo seeking an AI automation engineer to work directly with leadership and embed AI across the company. The goal?
Hire "a single engineer who will use AI to automate manual work across the company and increase employee productivity."
You'll start seeing more of these types of roles, Roetzer predicts. And it's not just about hiring a single expert and calling it a day. Integration must be a team-wide competency, as Roetzer emphasized in a recent post.
What separates good from great when AI can generate infinite variations of anything?
According to Capps' article, the answer is taste.
The ability to curate, guide, and make high-quality creative decisions will be one of the most in-demand human skills in an AI-saturated world.
This category includes roles like differentiation designers and story designers. These titles may sound odd today but reflect a deep truth: AI can execute, but it can’t choose. Humans with strong aesthetic judgment, audience empathy, and product intuition will be the new creative directors of AI workflows.
"So that ability becomes more and more important when everyone has access to the same technologies," says Roetzer.
If the New York Times article laid out the future of jobs, a new guide by the nonprofit 80,000 Hours tackled the skills you’ll need to thrive in them.
The guide, titled "How not to lose your job to AI," recommends skills such as:
As Roetzer pointed out, most professionals still don’t understand what AI is capable of. That makes it hard to plan around it—let alone get ahead of it. But tools like JobsGPT (created by Roetzer) and thoughtful self-assessment can help you start mapping how your current role could evolve.
The roles and skills discussed in these reports aren’t futuristic abstractions. They're already showing up in job postings and org charts. What’s missing is widespread awareness—and a proactive mindset.
"You can't wait for someone else to show up and figure this out for you," says Roetzer. "You've got to deeply understand what AI is, what it's capable of today, and where it's going in the next couple years. You have to experiment with the new models as they come out."