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FROM REPLACE TO REFACE
THE 2026 REFRAME AROUND AI The friction around AI integration and adoption is very loud. I can’t scroll for 5 seconds on LinkedIn without seeing several posts hating AI. More executives are calling for AI to be used while more employees are resisting it. The question I keep asking myself is: Why does everything have to become a battle? HR DIVE shares results of a 2025 survey of more than 1000 senior executives. 45% of CEOs said most their employees are resistant or even openly hostile to AI at work. 95% of companies had invested in AI, but only 14% had actually aligned workforce, tech, and growth goals. Fear of job loss scores 4.5 / 5 as a resistance factor. Surprise! Surprise! Tech developments are supposed to be exciting. With the exception of Caller ID, millennials were always excited about new tech advances. AI is no exception. In their personal lives, people don’t hesitate to use it. A usage analysis notes that roughly 70% of ChatGPT usage is personal rather than work-related. People still use it at work a lot, but they don’t like their bosses knowing about it. Heck, even your boss is using it. LET’S BE HONEST FOR A SECONDI think the biggest fuck up with launching AI was claiming that it could replace people. I mean seriously, did you honestly expect people were gonna take the beating lying down? Even as someone who doesn’t face the same risk, you’d have to be a complete sociopath to actually enjoy reading such news. No one wants to see a massive unemployment crisis due to people being replaced by AI. Another obvious issue: Your customers need income to buy your shit. If every company just sacked all their people and replaced them with AI, who is gonna have money to buy? Groundbreaking realisation, right? Seems like a very obvious question, but to some people it’s not even a consideration.
"Unemployment creates a vicious cycle of more cautious spending, causing smaller revenues, causing more layoffs, which then causes even less spending."
We can’t be too daft or short-sighted to see this. THE NECESSARY AI REBRANDWhen the computer was invented, executive leaders didn’t create a human vs the machine narrative, or make calls to “fire all staff” publicly — triggering people’s panic. They simply emphasised accuracy and efficiency as the main benefits. So why are we making such triggering announcements so publicly now with AI? Why are we pitting AI and employees against each other? And most importantly, why are we using it as an excuse to eliminate entry level positions? Remember entry-level positions? Remember when you got your first internship or first job? What did they make you do? You probably walked in expecting to be briefed on the new brand campaign for Nike, come up with a killer concept, and get promoted to creative director within the first week. The kind of success Hollywood had us dreaming of. The same level of delusion the founders of AI had when they launched it as the replacement for employees. What did you end up doing instead? Get coffee, take notes, make reports, complete repetitive brainless tasks…resist yawning for 8 hours. You probably felt like you had so much unused potential, but wait, can we circle back to that bit about repetitive brainless tasks? You know the kind of work that makes you wonder if capitalism truly is a better alternative to communism. Here’s another wild thought: What if instead of replacing people with AI, we automated these tasks?
"What if we redesigned jobs so that humans can do less brainless work, and actually use the potential they would enjoy using?"
Do you think people would be so resistant to AI then? IKEA HAS ALREADY DONE ITThe brand that changed the furniture scene was again an early adopter of AI. They started in 2021 with proper plans that didn’t sound like an evil masterplan that someone with a god complex came up with. No, just real change. Real adoption and integration of new tech that help their business become even more successful. Not to feed their egos, but to actually feed their pipelines and results were astounding. IKEA rolled out its AI chatbot Billie in 2021 to take care of everyday customer questions, freeing its call-centre staff to move into more interesting interior design roles. A shift that Ingka Group has framed as upskilling rather than cutting jobs. The tech and big training efforts helped 8,500 people switch into design-advice roles. Leaders like Ulrika Biesert say it’s all about giving staff more opportunities, and there’s been no sign of major pushback from employees. Since the launch, Billie has handled nearly half of all customer queries (about 3.2 million of them) saving $14.5 million and helping IKEA ramp up its personalised design services without harming its focus on looking after co-workers. A real win-win-win scenario for all parties. THE JOB REDESIGN FRAMEWORK
"Automate the tasks humans hate. Free humans to do the work they love."
If you approached AI adoption as a way to make everybody’s life simpler and easier, much like how the computer was rolled out, people would be more than happy to get on board.
PHASE 1
Work AuditYou’re looking for repetitive, rules-based work that drains time without needing judgment, creativity, or relationship-building. 1.1 Build a Task Inventory
1.2 Score Each Task (1–5 for each criterion)
Pro tip: Don’t ignore micro-tasks — tiny actions repeated dozens of times per day often create the biggest automation wins.
PHASE 2
Human Potential DiscoveryIt’s time to get to know your team. What do they enjoy doing? What are their ambitions? What potential do they have? What have you not been noticing about them? 2.1 Motivation & Energy Profile (1–5 ratings)How energising is:
2.2 Aptitude Indicators (1–5)Statements like:
2.3 Experience & Expertise Snapshot
2.4 Manager CalibrationManagers score each person on:
Remember: This isn’t performance management. It’s role-shaping intelligence.
PHASE 3
Data & Technical ReadinessConfirm what type of automation is feasible with the current technology and what info is needed to setup automations. Usually this is where reality hits and people realise that automation is much more complex than they thought. This section could be a book on its own and could be as a big as a bible. 3.1 Data
3.2 Tech
3.3 Light Ethics & Risk Scan
Rule of thumb: A perfect automation candidate can still be impossible without the right data & tech foundation.
PHASE 4
Role RestructuringRedesign jobs around what can be automated and where you can utilise your team’s full human potential. It’s important to keep an open mind during this phase and move away from “safe” conventions. It’s time to throw out the rule book and use our imagination to redefine what a job should actually be. 4.1 Remove High-Score Task ClustersHigh automation scores → automated, AI-assisted, simplified, or shifted into supervised workflows. 4.2 Rebuild Roles DeliberatelyExamples:
4.3 Define a “Digital Teammate Model”
4.4 Customer Impact Check
Aim: Make work better for humans and customers.
PHASE 5
Pilot, Train, IterateJust like it says on your shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat as needed. Measure failures and keep fixing until you eliminate them. Roll out in phases while measuring impact based on predefined metrics. 5.1 Define Metrics & Track
5.2 Train Teams
5.3 Iterate & Optimise
PHASE 6
People move up, not out6.1 Unlock potential
6.2 Share SuccessesCelebrate:
6.3 Protect Psychological SafetyProvide:
6.4 Lightweight GovernanceGuardrails, not bureaucracy:
IT’S TIME TO REIMAGINE JOBSWe still haven’t seen AI’s full potential. The technology gives us a chance to free up brain power that we used on execution before which we can now use for cognitive, creative and intuitive work. The key reframe the conversation around this technology needs is: AI is here to replace tasks, not people and that a job ≠ execution.
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