Are You Replaceable?

The AI Audit Has Begun

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The world’s most honest job interview question is finally on the table: “Are you sure we can’t get a machine to do this?”

If you scan the latest headlines, you’ll see companies are making it policy:

• Duolingo only hires when AI can’t do the job.*

• Shopify makes every manager prove a human outperforms a bot before hiring.**

• Fiverr warns everyone: adapt to AI or risk being replaced.***

AI is influencing hiring decisions hard and setting the bar high for who gets hired at all. Because when a machine can do the work, why keep a human on the payroll?

The AI audit has begun. Now is the time to find out where you stand, before someone else decides for you.

The Numbers

Just last month (May 2025), Microsoft announced over 6,000 layoffs," dubbed “a strategic shift,” to prioritise AI-powered growth and efficiency.**** IBM followed suit, cutting 8,000 jobs and many from HR, after advanced AI tools took over core admin work.*****

AI agents are starting to take over routine work, and teams across industries are getting leaner. Even contracting work and freelancing are now feeling the pressure, as platforms automate tasks that people used to call their bread and butter.

So, if your tasks can be documented, measured, or templated, ask yourself, “Are you making yourself easy to automate, or impossible to ignore?”

How to Pass the AI Audit

Here’s how to make yourself irreplaceable when the algorithms are taking attendance:

1. Audit Your Work
   Make a brutally honest list of your daily tasks. Which ones could be mapped, templated, or automated? If you’re not sure, try running those tasks through an AI tool and compare the results.

2. Find Your Edge
   Identify the moments in your week where you do something no AI could, like solving novel problems, building relationships or reading between the lines. Double down on these.

3. Integrate, Don’t Isolate
   Start using AI tools, not as competition, but as collaborators. Whether it’s brainstorming, research, or admin, let AI handle the predictable so you can focus on the unpredictable.

4. Show Your Learning
   Document your process of working with AI and share it with your team or network. The most valuable employees now aren’t just the best at their job but are the best at evolving with the job.

5. Stay Visible
   Jump into projects that stretch you. Join cross-functional teams. Volunteer to pilot new tools.

Want a shortcut to see where you stand?

This week’s pick: Build your AI Audit Agent, which is an interactive tool you can build. It helps you map your daily work, highlights what’s easy to automate, and even suggests how to test the switch to AI (without breaking anything or calling IT).

How it works:

• Answer 10 quick questions about your weekly tasks.

• Get an instant report showing which parts are “AI-easy” and which are “human edge.”

• See simple, safe experiments you can try right now, no code, no risk.

Follow the steps to conduct your AI Audit here.

The future will lift those who turn their curiosity into experiments and their experiments into skills.

One last question for you: “What’s the one thing you do at work that only you can do? If you’re not sure, now’s the time to find out.

Want help running your own AI audit or building your first “irreplaceable” workflow? Join my next live session or reply to this email and let’s map your future together.

All the Zest 🍋
Cien

P.S. If this made you feel something, forward it to someone who might need a reminder: we’re still here, still dreaming, and now, maybe, a little closer to touching it.

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