The Death of the Middle
The Era of Erasure
Artificial intelligence is erasing entire career paths right now, and I am watching this unfold in real time. In the past, I managed large teams and six-figure contracts that justified entire departments; however, those teams are shrinking daily. As headcounts drop, automation is steadily taking over work that previously required expensive specialists.
While you likely told yourself that certain skilled roles and knowledge work offered protection, my experience as a product manager and strategist reveals a different reality. Artificial intelligence is rendering those roles redundant. By making work easier, it also makes "good enough" irrelevant. Consequently, you need to understand exactly where this leaves you as The Death of the Middle accelerates.
The Disappearing Standard
Previously, you could succeed simply by being capable. If you showed up and delivered results, you were safe. But that standard has evaporated.
AI is fundamentally restructuring how society measures value. Tasks that once occupied entire teams now happen instantly, meaning roles that used to justify a career no longer hold weight. Precision and expertise no longer distinguish you because they have become the baseline for software.
I witnessed this movement firsthand while working with a fraud team that possessed significant resources and experience. Despite their pedigree, they failed to keep up because cyberattacks scaled faster than human responses. It wasn't until we built machine learning models to fight back that we saw immediate improvement.
Similarly, my work in product management has evolved. I used to spend hours writing user stories and structuring sprints. Today, I generate them in minutes. While the work still requires strategy, the deep focus on process now happens in clicks. Since software never burns out, the middle gets eradicated, leaving you with two options: stand out or disappear.
Exceptional or Replaceable
Ultimately, you will only thrive if you adapt faster than the technology advances. We are seeing businesses lose to competitors who move faster with AI, while skilled professionals watch software perform their work instantly. Even startups get outrun by lean teams building in weeks rather than months.
Therefore, you do not face a divide between humans and AI. You face a divide between the AI-accelerated and the AI-replaced.
Trusting Your Instincts
In this data-driven environment, you might wonder if you should still trust your gut. While human intuition once defined the difference between success and failure, you now compete with systems that process data faster and with fewer blind spots.
The best builders I know refuse to replace their instincts; instead, they enhance them. They actively test their gut decisions against machine insights, allowing them to adapt before the market forces their hand.
Break Your Thinking
To ensure you remain vital, you need to test if you are irreplaceable. I suggest you stop asking AI for solutions and start asking it to predict your failure instead.
Run this test immediately:
"Explain exactly why my startup failed in 12 months."
"Write a press release announcing the collapse of my company."
"Adopt the perspective of a ruthless competitor betting against me."
Then, push it further. Ask what blind spots you missed and where your strategy holds weaknesses. By compelling the AI to break your assumptions, you can fix them before reality does.
Adapt to the New Rules
AI targets the old way of doing things rather than your specific job. While the middle shrinks, you remain in the game if you accept that the rules have changed.
Your goal is to use AI as a force multiplier to sharpen your instincts and move faster. You need to decide today if you will use AI to replace your output or to make yourself irreplaceable. Start experimenting now, because you must push AI to its limits before it pushes you out.
All the Zest
🍋 Cien