AI and the Great Adaptation
and why it's becoming the equalizer
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk and chatter around the “AI Job Crisis”.
Recent announcements from Canva, Shopify, and Fiverr have sparked conversations about the future of knowledge work, particularly how all of this fits in alongside AI.
The looming question that everyone is asking is: “Is AI going to take my job?”
It’s easy to get swept up in the fever pitch of the hype and immediately jump to pessimistic conclusions, but I think there’s a silver lining in all of this…
Let’s start with the facts.
In April 2025, over at Shopify, CEO Tobi Lütke announced a bold new hiring policy via an internal memo. Teams must now prove that a job cannot be performed by AI before requesting additional headcount. This AI-first approach reflects how they’re becoming more operationally efficient. [1]
In the same month, Canva, an Australian design software giant, laid off 10 of its 12 technical writers, marking the company’s first known redundancy. With a workforce of over 5,000, this targeted cut shows a broader trend: companies are turning to AI to streamline operations. [2]
Meanwhile, Fiverr’s CEO, Micha Kaufman, sent a candid email to employees warning that AI poses a threat to every job, including his own. He urged his team to learn AI skills to stay relevant, emphasizing that those who fail to adapt will be left behind. [3]
It’s fair to say that these announcements point to a clear trend: AI is reshaping the workplace, automating tasks, and forcing companies to rethink their workforce strategies.
But rather than viewing this as bad news, there is another perspective — we can see this as an opportunity for knowledge workers to take control of their futures instead.
At first glance, layoffs and AI-driven policies might seem like a threat, but history offers a different angle. When computers emerged in the 20th century, many featured mass unemployment. Instead, new roles like software developers, data analysts (and scientists), and IT specialists were born. You should read this blog from Microsoft titled: The Day the Horse Lost Its Job. It’s a well-written retrospective on the evolution of the horse-drawn cart industry.
AI is positioned to follow a similar path. By automating repetitive tasks, AI frees us to focus on what humans do best: creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.
AI is also creating new opportunities. While some jobs may be automated, occupational categories most exposed to generative AI could still add jobs to areas that still require human-level decision-making and oversight — software engineering, product management, data science, and even content marketing.
This shift isn’t about replacement, it’s more about augmentation and evolution.
To thrive in this new era, we must embrace change. AI is becoming a collaborator, not a competitor.
Here are five things we can all do to get a head start and not fall behind:
Upskill in AI: learning to use AI tools effectively is now a non-negotiable. This includes mastering how to prompt, edit its outputs, and integrate it into workflows.
Focus on human strengths: AI is really good at data processing and pattern recognition — you can’t beat it. But humans do shine in creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking. You should hone these skills to differentiate yourself in the workplace. Klarna just started rehiring more workers (customer support) because they’ve realized the benefits of having humans in specific roles.
Collaborate with AI: We should view AI as a partner that can enhance our productivity. Technical tools like Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, and others assist programmers, while other non-technical AI tools can help draft reports or analyze data.
Commit to lifelong learning: The rapid pace of technology change now demands continuous learning. We should stay curious, attend workshops, seminars, and even explore new tools to remain relevant.
Be adaptable: Flexibility is key. Be open to evolving your role, take on new responsibilities, and embrace change as an opportunity to grow.
AI has now become the equalizer. It has raised the bar for everyone.
In the past, some knowledge workers could coast, contributing minimally while hiding in the shadows of high performers. AI changes that. Its ability to handle routine tasks puts underperformers on notice: those who aren’t adding significant value are now at risk. This is a forcing function, compelling all of us to evaluate our contributions — it’s about raising the standard for everyone.
As Tobi Lütke eloquently puts it:
“I described Shopify as a red queen race based on the Alice in Wonderland story—you have to keep running just to stay still.”
It’s not enough to be “good” at your job anymore. You need to be great. We can’t rest on our laurels any longer, and it’s about making sure we keep adapting. This might sound exhausting to many folks reading this, but if you take the above steps day by day, week by week, year by year, it becomes habitual. Take baby steps.
If you’re reading this now, it means you’re still early. There’s time.
Frontier firms will also start to emerge, and working alongside AI will be the norm. AI will handle repetitive tasks, and humans will be driving strategy and innovation.
But there will be challenges. Reskilling will be super critical to move workers into new roles. Yet, I’m still optimistic. AI’s role in leveling the playing field ensures that only those who add value will thrive. By automating the mandate, AI allows us to focus on meaningful work.
Notes:
[1] Shopify’s Internal Memo
You can view the original post here.
Team,
We are entering a time where more merchants and entrepreneurs could be created than any other in history. We often talk about bringing down the complexity curve to allow more people to choose this as a career. Each step along the entrepreneurial path is rife with decisions requiring skill, judgement and knowledge. Having AI alongside the journey and increasingly doing not just the consultation, but also doing the work for our merchants is a mindblowing step function change here.
Our task here at Shopify is to make our software unquestionably the best canvas on which to develop the best businesses of the future. We do this by keeping everyone cutting edge and bringing all the best tools to bear so our merchants can be more successful than they themselves used to imagine. For that we need to be absolutely ahead.
Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify
Maybe you are already there and find this memo puzzling. In that case you already use AI as a thought partner, deep researcher, critic, tutor, or pair programmer. I use it all the time, but even I feel I'm only scratching the surface. It’s the most rapid shift to how work is done that I’ve seen in my career and I’ve been pretty clear about my enthusiasm for it: you've heard me talk about AI in weekly videos, podcasts, town halls, and… Summit! Last summer I used agents to create my talk, and presented about that. I did this as a call to action and invitation for everyone to tinker with AI, to dispel any scepticism or confusion that this matters at all levels. Many of you took up the call, and all of us who did have been in absolute awe of the new capabilities and tools that AI can deliver to augment our skills, crafts, and fill in our gaps.
What we have learned so far is that using AI well is a skill that needs to be carefully learned by… using it a lot. It’s just too unlike everything else. The call to tinker with it was the right one, but it was too much of a suggestion. This is what I want to change here today. We also learned that, as opposed to most tools, AI acts as a multiplier. We are all lucky to work with some amazing colleagues, the kind who contribute 10X of what was previously thought possible. It’s my favorite thing about this company. And what’s even more amazing is that, for the first time, we see the tools become 10X themselves. I’ve seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done.
In my On Leadership memo years ago, I described Shopify as a red queen race based on the Alice in Wonderland story—you have to keep running just to stay still. In a company growing 20-40% year over year, you must improve by at least that every year just to re-qualify. This goes for me as well as everyone else.
This sounds daunting, but given the nature of the tools, this doesn’t even sound terribly ambitious to me anymore. It’s also exactly the kind of environment that our top performers tell us they want. Learning together, surrounded by people who also are on their own journey of personal growth and working on worthwhile, meaningful, and hard problems is precisely the environment Shopify was created to provide. This represents both an opportunity and a requirement, deeply connected to our core values of Be a Constant Learner and Thrive on Change. These aren't just aspirational phrases—they're fundamental expectations that come with being a part of this world-class team. This is what we founders wanted, and this is what we built.
What This Means
Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify. It's a tool of all trades today, and will only grow in importance. Frankly, I don't think it's feasible to opt out of learning the skill of applying AI in your craft; you are welcome to try, but I want to be honest I cannot see this working out today, and definitely not tomorrow. Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure. If you're not climbing, you're sliding.
AI must be part of your GSD Prototype phase. The prototype phase of any GSD project should be dominated by AI exploration. Prototypes are meant for learning and creating information. AI dramatically accelerates this process. You can learn to produce something that other team mates can look at, use, and reason about in a fraction of the time it used to take.
We will add AI usage questions to our performance and peer review questionnaire. Learning to use AI well is an unobvious skill. My sense is that a lot of people give up after writing a prompt and not getting the ideal thing back immediately. Learning to prompt and load context is important, and getting peers to provide feedback on how this is going will be valuable.
Learning is self directed, but share what you learned. You have access to as much of the cutting edge AI tools as possible. There is chat.shopify.io , which we had for years now. Developers have proxy, Copilot, Cursor, Claude code, all pre-tooled and ready to go. We’ll learn and adapt together as a team. We’ll be sharing Ws (and Ls!) with each other as we experiment with new AI capabilities, and we’ll dedicate time to AI integration in our monthly business reviews and product development cycles. Slack and Vault have lots of places where people share prompts that they developed, like #revenue-ai-use-cases and #ai-centaurs.
Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI. What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.
Everyone means everyone. This applies to all of us—including me and the executive team.
The Path Forward
AI will totally change Shopify, our work, and the rest of our lives. We're all in on this! I couldn't think of a better place to be part of this truly unprecedented change than being here. You don't just get a front-row seat, but are surrounded by a whole company learning and pushing things forward together.
Our job is to figure out what entrepreneurship looks like in a world where AI is universally available. And I intend for us to do the best possible job of that, and to do that I need everyone’s help. I already laid out a lot of the AI projects in the themes this year- our roadmap is clear, and our product will better match our mission. What we need to succeed is our collective sum total skill and ambition at applying our craft, multiplied by AI, for the benefit of our merchants.
-tobi CEO Shopify
[2] Canva’s Layoffs Announcement
Link to full article.
[3] Fiverr’s Internal CEO Email
Link to original post here.
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