It feels like every day we’re bombarded with news about AI replacing yet another job role. Engineers writing code? There’s an AI for that. Product managers crafting roadmaps and requirements? AI’s got you covered. Designers working with pixels? AI can do that faster and with fewer complaints about the brief*.

The march of progress is starting to feel more like a stampede.

As I watch my three-year-old zooming around the house, knocking things over with gleeful abandon, I can’t help but wonder what kind of job market he’ll be entering in 15-20 years. Will there be any safe harbours left from the AI tide?

One thought keeps bringing me back to some semblance of comfort: entrepreneurship.

Unless AI develops a desire to incorporate a businesses, raise funding, and deal with the existential dread of making payroll each month (please, dear god, no), there’s at least one role that seems somewhat protected. After all, no one can sack you from your own company. Well, boards can, but that’s a whole different blog post.

AI doesn’t need money. It doesn’t have rent to pay or a family to feed. It doesn’t have that burning desire to prove something to the world.

That said, the challenge for entrepreneurs isn’t just about avoiding replacement – it’s about building viable businesses in a world where the competitive landscape includes entities with practically unlimited scale, no need for sleep, and the ability to iterate at lightning speed.

This has always been the entrepreneur’s dilemma in some form: how to carve out space in a market filled with bigger, better-resourced players. But the AI factor cranks up the difficulty level considerably. I have to believe though that that nugfet of humanity and comfort with gut over reason will out.

Perhaps we’re witnessing not just a technological revolution but an evolution in entrepreneurship itself. One where the successful founders aren’t just those who can build products or services, but those who can harness AI whilst maintaining that uniquely human spark that makes a business connect with actual people.

For now, I’m taking small comfort in the fact that while AI might replace many jobs, it can’t replace the entrepreneurial spirit. At least not until it develops an ego and a penchant for risky financial decisions, anyway.

*I’m allowed to make this joke, as a designer