The hollowing out we’re witnessing in software development, executive assistance and copywriting isn’t a coincidence. It’s part of a broader pattern reshaping virtually every knowledge work profession, though at different rates and with field-specific nuances.

I’ve spent the past six months speaking with professionals across industries about how AI is transforming their work. The consistency of the pattern is remarkable. For many, it’s also deeply unsettling.

Fewer mid-level positions

In law, AI tools now handle document review, due diligence, contract drafting and legal research with growing sophistication. The mid-level associates who traditionally spent years on these tasks before advancing to more strategic work are watching their role compress as junior associates with AI tools can now accomplish the same work faster.

A partner at a London law firm told me recently that they’re completely rethinking their staffing model. “We used to need a pyramid of associates,” she explained. “Now we’re moving toward what looks more like an hourglass: fewer mid-level positions with more senior strategic advisors and junior AI wranglers.”

The comfortable middle ground is shrinking rapidly

The accounting profession has been on this path for years, with automation increasingly handling transaction processing, standard financial statement preparation and tax returns. Strategic financial advisors remain valuable, as do the technically skilled professionals who manage increasingly complex systems, but the comfortable middle ground is shrinking rapidly.

Even medicine shows early signs of this transformation. Radiologists who primarily interpret straightforward scans are increasingly competing with AI systems that can identify common conditions with remarkable accuracy. The specialists who handle complex cases and the technicians who manage the equipment and systems still have clear roles, but the predictable middle is under pressure.

No longer the safest paths to stable careers

What makes this transformation particularly jarring is that we’ve traditionally viewed professional expertise as something largely immune to automation. For generations, we’ve told young people that education and specialised training were the safest paths to stable careers.

Parents urged children away from manual labour towards knowledge professions precisely because they seemed future-proof. The assumption was that while machines might replace factory workers, they could never replace those who think, analyse and create for a living.

This belief has shaped educational systems, career guidance and personal aspirations for decades. Now we’re discovering that knowledge work isn’t categorically protected. Rather, it’s being reshaped along new lines that prioritise either strategic thinking at the highest level or effective AI orchestration at the entry level, with diminishing space for those caught in between.

The psychological adjustment required here isn’t merely professional but deeply personal, challenging long-held assumptions about the relationship between education, expertise and economic security.

Existential discomfort

What makes this pattern so pervasive across fields is that it follows a fundamental truth about knowledge work: the more predictable and pattern-based the knowledge work, the more vulnerable it is to automation, regardless of how prestigious or highly paid it might have been historically.

This creates wrenching professional identity challenges for many. I’ve spoken with numerous mid-career professionals who built their entire sense of self around competence in work that’s rapidly becoming automated. Their discomfort isn’t merely economic; it’s existential.

For organisations, this shift demands a fundamental reconsideration of team structures, career paths and talent development. The traditional pyramid of many juniors, fewer mid-level professionals and a small number of seniors is flattening into new shapes with different skill distributions.

Shifting from execution to strategy

For individuals navigating this knowledge work transformation, the critical question isn’t what tasks you perform but what value you create that cannot be easily automated. This often means shifting from execution to strategy, from applying known patterns to identifying new ones, and from working with information to working with people.

The professionals who thrive through this transition are those who embrace AI tools as amplifiers rather than competitors, who focus on developing uniquely human capacities like strategic thinking, relationship building and creative problem-solving.

What we’re witnessing isn’t merely a technological shift but a fundamental reconceptualisation of professional value across knowledge work. The implications extend far beyond individual careers to how we structure organisations, education systems and ultimately our understanding of meaningful work itself.