So, you’re staring down the barrel of AI - and it’s squarely pointed at you. If you’re an IT professional, you may be dubious. Tentative. Excited. Even scared.

And rightly so.

How we, as IT professionals, understand and adopt this technology will determine not only our success in the near term, but the trajectory of our entire career overall. But the way you work with AI (and whether you want to or not, you WILL be working with AI) will greatly determine how your career unfolds.

Who you are, what you do, and where you are in your career has a direct impact on how you should approach AI. To keep this article from turning into a novella, I’m focusing on three IT roles - Elder IT Geeks, Newbie IT Weenies, and C-Level executives and Managers. Let’s start with the one I’m most familiar with, Elder IT Geeks.

Elder IT Geeks

You’ve been doing this IT thing for decades. Maybe you’ve got some gray hairs - or no hair - and you’ve just been cruising along, teaching the newbies, fighting the fires, building the 401K.

And then AI happens.

Now for most of us, the immediate response is disdain. There’s NO WAY some overzealous search engine can do your job, right? And it’s just another thing for me to learn and forget, when the fad fades.

Well, you’re both right, and wrong.

First off, where you’re wrong - AI is not going away. There’s too much money being invested in it, and it’s already permeating damn near every facet of our lives, especially those of us working in IT. So, you need to make your peace with it.

The good news is where you’re right. It can’t do what you do, at least not right now. You’ve got decades of knowledge, experience, and scars that no AI can replicate. And all those lessons you learned and knowledge you gained is your AI superpower. This is your time to be a freaking gray haired rock star.

You should picture AI as a room of hundreds of eager young developers who just graduated from college, have impressive knowledge of a myriad of programming languages and platforms, but have zero real world experience. And they REALLY want to please you - but their enthusiasm can cause them to confidently make absolutely wrong choices. They have the technical knowledge, just not the real world experience of taking the “big picture” into consideration.

And that’s where you become the rock star. You DO have decades of experience, and are able to see the big picture in a way that no AI can (at least for now). And because you can keep them on the right course, correcting them as they go, you will instantly go from just an “elder geek that’s forgotten more than he knows” to one of the most productive people on your team.

But what if you’re towards the beginning of your career?

Newbie IT Weenies

Well, I was trying to think of a way to soften this, but there just isn’t one. If you’re, say, fresh out of college up to in the middle of your career, where you’re still a lunch pail developer honing your craft, then really the only advice I can offer is:

Be scared.

AI was built to basically do your job, and do it much much faster than you can. So what does that mean for you? The good thing is that not all hope is lost; but you’re going to need to be very proactive in what you do to “future proof” your career in IT.

The first thing you need to do is start learning the stuff that’s not just the Xs and Os. Learn the deeper, weird stuff about architecture, scalability, concurrency, corporate politics, etc. It’s basically the skills we used to use to discern between a software developer and a software consultant. These are the skills that will keep you ahead of AI, because AI just isn’t good at that secondary and tertiary level of thinking and planning.

Also, you need to be an AI-fu master. Learn all you can about it - different LLM models and what they are good (and bad) at, building MCPs and skills, adding AI to products, understanding agentic coding, etc. Instead of viewing AI as an adversary, turn it into an ally.

Oh, and I recommend buddying up to those Elder IT Geeks before they retire. Take them out to lunch, buy them a couple of beers, and listen to their war stories about difficult projects. You can greatly speed up your move up the IT ladder by growing your experience through their experience.

If this section resonated with you, here’s even more motivation for why you want to grow your career past worker bee developer - your C-Level executive or manager may not listen to what comes next.

C-Level And Management

You’ve seen all the hype about how AI can revolutionize your business and grow your bottom line. You might have even dipped your toe into the AI waters, and seen immediate results. And that’s a good thing - for now. But make sure you’re not just looking at your feet, but also at the road ahead.

The mistake I most often see executives and managers make is only being focused on the bottom line. This is a short-sighted strategy, and pretty much always leads to Bad Things Happening. Just like Elder IT Geeks look past the immediate task towards secondary and tertiary concerns, you as an executive need to look past short term profitability and not lose sight of the things that have a profound impact on your long term business health - especially when they can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

And here’s the real land mine. Right now, you may have noticed a marked increase in productivity from your IT Department, especially from those Elder IT Geeks - now you know why. But here’s where keeping your eyes down the road comes into play. Do not fall into the trap of thinking “well, my gray haired geeks are much more productive than my worker bee developers. I can just fire all of them, and instantly become more profitable!” That’s staring at your feet, and not looking ahead.

Because in a few years those Elder IT Geeks are going to retire:

Who’s going to take their place?

In the Southern US we have an old saying, “make sure you don’t eat your seed corn”, meaning make sure you don’t cannibalize your future to fill your belly in the present. Your “seed corn” in this instance are the Newbie IT Weenies that followed my earlier advice - and they’ll stand out from the ones blindly plodding along. And if you’re not sure who they are, ask the Elder IT Geeks, because they’ll have already spotted the promising young stars that are paying attention and making moves to improve themselves.

In the end there will be a happy medium - you probably will be able to reduce headcount somewhat, and remove those folks who are not adapting to the changing landscape. Incidentally, this happens every time a disruptive technology gains prominence - some people adapt, some people thrive, and some people fall away.

But make sure you plan for the future. Work with your Elder IT Geeks to proactively train up the promising Newbie IT Weenies. Because in the end, how AI benefits your organization long term is highly dependent on what you do in the short term to plan for sustained productivity. Stare at your feet and not look ahead, and you’ll be asking yourself “What happened” as your profitability suddenly plummets and you’re left wondering why.

Your Future is in Your Hands

No matter what your role is in IT - Elder IT Geek, Newbie IT Weenie, or C-Level Executive, you can either watch the world change around you because of AI - and possibly get left behind - or you can embrace it and plan for your future. All it takes is a little planning and foresight - but you’ve got to be the one who looks ahead.

Remember the old saying - “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” Well, the opportunity is here; the preparation is completely within your hands.