The AI Crossroads: Choosing Your Side of the “K-Shaped” Economy
- Jun 7
- 3 min read
By Andy Williamson
Related to the UCF commencement speech booing, I think those graduates had a point. They were responding to something real. But they were only hearing one part of the story. The other part is that AI also opens doors for the people who learn to use it. And that matters for a lot more people than the graduates in that auditorium.
The booing represented resistance. But the concern underneath it is widely shared. Gallup found Gen Z three times more likely than older generations to think AI’s risks outweigh its benefits. Pew surveyed twenty-five countries last fall and the U.S. had the highest level of concern. Half of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI.
While the concern is real, we have some control of how AI is implemented. Its shape is ours to determine.
When the desktop computer was just being introduced 43 years ago, that’s when I started my career in IT training. It was similar to where we find ourselves today. Many people seeing a new technology for the first time. Some embracing, others resisting. The change to knowledge work happened regardless of your position.
But this time, the new technology is coming at us much faster, and the impact on jobs will be far greater. Will there be net job losses or gains from AI?
Organizations do have some control over how they implement AI. Some automation is good. It handles the busy work humans don’t want to do. But it has to be joined by processes that complement and amplify human abilities. We call that augmentation.
Here’s something those humanities and communication graduates probably haven’t heard yet. The skills they spent four years building are the same ones needed to be good at using AI. They call it AI fluency. It means good judgment, clear writing, and knowing when a confident answer from the AI is actually wrong. NACE’s 2026 Job Outlook flagged it as the biggest skill gap employers see in new hires. And here’s the irony. Recent research found that the new graduates who trust AI the most are the worst at catching it when it’s wrong. That’s a critical thinking gap. The booing graduates spent four years getting good at exactly the kind of critical thinking that makes you good at AI.
Picture a single person in a marketing role handling blog posts, white papers, LinkedIn ads with images, and customer-facing sales videos. All of it, by herself, with AI’s assistance. That person is more valuable, not less. Smaller companies that couldn’t have afforded a marketing operation can hire one person who does all of it.
When AI lowers the cost of doing marketing, or any other kind of work, the demand for that role can increase. The new work goes to the people who learned how to use the tool and can fill that role. One group with the in-demand skill sees rising demand and pay. The other sees fewer opportunities and lower wages. Economists call this a K-Shaped economy.
Every week, hundreds of people sign up for my company’s webinars and half-day AI classes. More than half are individuals trying to advance their careers. The booing graduates and the people in my classrooms are looking at the same shift. One group is pushing back. The other is signing up.
If you’re working now, or planning to be working in the next year or two, you’ve got a decision to make. Will you embrace AI as a tool that makes you better at your work, or actively resist it? In either case, like the desktop computers from the 80s, AI is here to stay. What side of the K will you be on?
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