09/09/2025
I am a Senior Data Analyst. My SME is linguistics; I analyze language for my company (i.e. complaints, NPS survey responses, call transcripts, webchat, etc.).
My job is more at risk of AI redundancy than artists. Fact. As an analyst, the data tells a clear story: ~80% of my tier and below will be gone in the next 5 years, replaced by AI agents and processes.
So, what do I do? And what is the most efficient use of my time and effort?
Answer: make myself irreplaceable; learn, grow, evolve.
My role is also about forecasting and making predictions. So, here is a future thought:
The end result of art, the final on-page product, will become less valuable and therefore become cheaper. Good for enterprises, bad for artists. Enterprises, however, drive the market.
Yet, as AI dominates the enterprise art sphere (and many other domains), people will start increasingly question "what is it to be human?" And they will actively seek out the human experience.
Therefore, the value of "human-centricity" will increase.
In valuing humanness, people will spend time, effort, and money on humanness.
What does this mean for artists? What is the opportunity?
In a close examination of the comments around this debate (it's my thing after all), the pro-human comments center around the "human soul" and "human effort."
In short: make your human soul and effort your "product."
This could translate as artists making money off livestreams / Youtube vids / timelapse videos of them creating art. Show your human soul, creativity, and effort; put it on display and make it the centrepiece of your product mix.
This way you may get two bites of the apple: You make money off creating the art (subscription fees, in-stream donations), and the higher perceived value of the end product attracts a higher price (i.e. you could auction off the piece at the end of the stream).
You have now made you, as an artist, irreplaceable by AI.
Learn, grow, evolve.
