After spending much of my career in technology, I’ve learned to be cautious whenever new technology arrives with predictions that it will change everything overnight.

I’ve heard versions of that promise before with cloud computing, big data, and the internet of things. Each ultimately changed how we work, but the actual impact always fell short of the promises coming out of Silicon Valley. I expect artificial intelligence will follow a similar path.

And the technology is still evolving alongside the conversation about how it should be governed. With AI companies and lawmakers increasingly discussing new guardrails, employers have to consider how these tools will ultimately be used in the workplace. It is another reminder of how much remains unsettled. As employers explore where AI can improve their work and prepare their workforce to use it, they should remain cautious about making long-term workforce decisions based on where the technology stands today.

After years working in technology, including serving as chief information officer for the City of Indianapolis, I now have the privilege of leading EmployIndy and seeing technological change from a different perspective. I hear it in conversations with employers trying to understand what skills they’ll need next in their workforce. I see it through workers wondering whether their skills will remain relevant. And I see it through young people preparing for careers.

That perspective recently took me to Washington, D.C., where I had the opportunity to testify before a U.S. Senate subcommittee examining artificial intelligence and the future of the American workforce. I shared what we’re seeing here in Indianapolis and made the case for better labor market information that can help communities understand where AI is changing work before disruption becomes displacement. The experience reinforced something I’ve come to believe strongly: AI is first and foremost a workforce story.

We are still learning what AI means for work.

One of the current challenges in talking about AI is separating what is happening from what we think might happen.

In Indiana, early labor market data gives us reason to pay attention, but not to panic. In February, 19% of Indiana businesses reported using AI in some part of their business. At the same time, since the release of ChatGPT and similar tools, national research has not yet found a significant decline in employment within occupations where AI has the potential to significantly change or assist with the tasks workers perform.

There are signals worth watching. Indiana job postings in occupations likely to be exposed to AI have fallen 41% since 2022, compared with 35% among occupations considered less exposed. But that decline began amid the broader retreat from the post-pandemic hiring surge, making it difficult to isolate AI as the cause. Meanwhile, advertised wages for AI-exposed positions have actually grown faster than wages for less-exposed positions.

The most honest answer right now is that we don’t have enough evidence to confidently attribute these employment trends to AI. That uncertainty can be uncomfortable and an open invitation for hyperbolic headlines and sensationalized social media posts.

Labor researcher Molly Kinder has described this period of uncertainty as the “messy middle,” a transition between the workforce we know and whatever more AI-enabled economy emerges. We shouldn’t wait until we know the final destination to begin preparing people for the journey.

There is no single AI story for Indianapolis.

Indianapolis is home to an incredibly diverse economy. Health care is our largest employment sector. Advanced manufacturing remains an important part of our economic base. We are a global center for life sciences and a major transportation and logistics hub. Construction continues across our community. And our hospitality, sports, and entertainment sectors bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to Indianapolis every year. AI’s impact will look different across each industry.

In conversations with local health systems, IU Health is developing how to use AI and automation to reduce the administrative burden on nurses and other clinicians. New technology can help document patient interactions, organize information, and prepare summaries for review. Giving nurses and medical staff more time with patients is one example of how these tools can strengthen the work already happening in health care.

Other occupations will experience much less disruption. We will still need electricians, plumbers, carpenters, hospitality workers, and countless other people whose jobs depend on physical skill, experience, judgment, and human interaction.

And office and professional work present another story altogether. AI can draft documents, analyze data, write code, summarize information, and automate tasks that once consumed hours of someone’s week. That’s where some of the fastest changes are underway.

Instead of focusing solely on whether AI will replace jobs, we should be asking more practical questions:

How is AI changing the work people do?

Which skills become more valuable as a result?

Where can technology give people more capacity to do the work that requires human judgment, creativity, and collaboration?

How are the entry points for career pathways now different?

We can’t afford to lose the first rung of the career ladder.

Entry-level work has already been changing for years. A generation ago, a high school diploma could open doors to many careers. A few decades later, a college degree became a requirement to even begin many career paths. Then employers began asking young people to arrive with more professional experience.

If technology can now perform some of the basic research, analysis, coding, writing, and administrative tasks historically assigned to junior employees, businesses have an understandable reason to rethink those roles. But there is a long-term risk if too many of those entry-level positions disappear.

Every experienced worker had to start somewhere. Today’s senior engineer started as a junior employee. Today’s master tradesperson was once an apprentice. If we eliminate opportunities where people gain experience, where does our experienced workforce come from? This is especially important for Indiana as employers across industries also prepare for a significant wave of experienced workers to retire.

As work changes, we need to preserve the pathways into careers. That’s why I believe so strongly in work-based learning. Internships, summer jobs, job shadowing, career-connected projects, and youth apprenticeships allow young people to begin accumulating experience earlier.

Here in Indianapolis, EmployIndy is partnering with employers and educators to secure and expand those opportunities to students of all ages through initiatives like Talent Bound, Project Indy, and Indiana Career Apprenticeship Pathway (INCAP).

AI literacy is becoming a workforce skill.

Earlier in my career when I was preparing to enter consulting, I realized that I didn’t know Microsoft Excel nearly as well as I needed to. My graduate program wasn’t teaching it, but I knew employers would expect it. I took every Excel class I could find at the library. Building spreadsheets with formulas, working with data, and creating a pivot table eventually became skills I could point to in interviews. It helped me demonstrate that I was prepared and qualified.

Knowing how to use Excel or effectively search the internet doesn’t make someone a technology expert. They’re simply skills many of us are expected to bring to the workplace. I believe AI literacy is headed in the same direction. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to become an AI expert. It means knowing how to ask the right questions, analyze information, recognize when an answer doesn’t make sense, validate an output, identify bias, and, perhaps most importantly, know when not to rely on AI.

As AI becomes more robust, I believe skills that are uniquely human will become even more valuable. Critical thinking, communication, judgment, ethics, adaptability, collaboration, and emotional intelligence. AI can generate an answer. We still need people who know whether it’s the right one.

Access cannot be an afterthought.

When personal computers and the internet first became common, not everyone had the same access. My family didn’t have a personal computer for a long time. I went to the library. I stayed at school to use a computer. Until we had internet at home, I had to find it somewhere else.

A computer and internet eventually became necessary to access services or apply for jobs. Libraries, schools, and community organizations became bridges into a changing world. And still today, too many communities have limited access. AI presents a similar challenge.

It is easy for those of us who work around technology every day to assume everyone has access to the devices, connectivity, training, and paid tools needed to develop these skills. They don’t. If some workers have employers paying for AI tools and providing structured training while others are expected to learn on their own, we risk creating another divide between the people who can adapt quickly and those who cannot.

The same risk exists among businesses. Large corporations have the resources to hire experts, experiment with tools, and build internal training programs. Many of the small and midsize employers that drive our local economy do not.

If access to AI skills becomes a prerequisite for economic mobility, equitable access to learning those skills must be part of our workforce strategy.

Shaping what comes next.

I am optimistic about our ability to navigate this transition because we’ve done it before. The internet changed nearly every workplace without becoming an “internet industry.” Email transformed communication. Smartphones put enormous computing power into our pockets. Automation reshaped manufacturing. Remote work changed expectations about where and how some jobs get done.

In each case, workers learned. Employers adapted. Education changed. New careers emerged. Each transition wasn’t equally easy for everyone. That is precisely the lesson we should carry forward.

At EmployIndy, that means continuing to listen to employers as their needs change, to residents as they navigate those changes, and to the community partners working alongside them. It means looking beyond Indianapolis to understand what workforce leaders across Indiana and the country are learning, then translating those lessons into solutions that make sense for our community. EmployIndy and other workforce boards were created for that purpose.

Technology will continue to change the workforce, just as it has throughout our history. EmployIndy is built to adapt. Our responsibility is to make sure opportunity does not depend on who already has access, support, and training. Because ultimately, the future of work isn’t about artificial intelligence or the next advanced technology.

The future of work is about people. It always will be.