10 Predictions on The Future of Humans at Work

Brooklyn → Bay Area

Ten years ago, my then partner, our dog Roxy, and our baby Mia moved to California from NYC. My heart was breaking, but it was also exhilarating, because we were riding the wave of what felt like a gold rush in tech and for software engineers which was important — because he was pivoting careers.

I remember saying to him on a prediction tangent: “In 10 years, software engineers will be the equivalent of a Customer Service Associate….this is a great offer we can’t refuse, but this is a short term strategy.” I’d told my QA engineer close friend something similar. And I remember also thinking, “Well god Sarah, that’s judgmental and you’re biased.” I was a kid without money or pedigree who had a chip on my shoulder about not going to an Ivy League school, or having worked at Bain like my colleagues in tech — and actually, I’d broken into start ups AS a Customer Service Associate, so I didn’t really say it with my chest. But I quietly doubled down on the people centric, EQ work of executive coaching a couple years later, during my own career transition.

There was a current of big change then, and here we are again. My core prediction now? The future of work belongs to the mentally agile, emotionally intelligent, and creative.

I’ve spent decades working as an operations leader in tech and the last several as an ICF Certified Executive Coach, partnering with senior leaders through growth challenges, career pivots, burnout, and leadership evolution.

I’ve also been around the block in my own career pivots and life rock bottoms ranging from a move from musical theatre to tech, near death and divorce, and fancy myself a Swiss Army generalist who’s had to build resilience, and tap deep into my most human skills to stay afloat. Having worked in emerging markets where we were making it up as we went — while we’re all debating which jobs AI will replace, and yes, that’s important — I think we’re experiencing something more fundamental and missing what lies beneath the titles, and the majors college students should be embracing.

Success in our careers will depend on mental resilience, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to thrive in gray areas — the MOST human skills of all, and ironically, the ones many companies still underinvest in, and overlook. The people who recognize and develop these capabilities now will have a the advantage. Here are my predictions:

Mental Wellness (prowess really) Becomes More Centered

The people who center their well-being proactively, not reactively as an intervention at rock bottom, will have the advantage in all aspects of their life. Today, attention/focus is sparse. The stresses of parenting, leading, caretaking parents in the midst of our democracy and systems crumbling are mounting. Mental health coaching will become mainstream on the mental health spectrum of care, as the demand for therapy increases, as insurance coverage expands (it’s happening now), as the loneliness epidemic deepens, and mental wellness collectively declines. Coaching generally will also become more mainstream. For some it’s a lifeline, for others, it’s a competitive advantage, just like the best athletes and their team of coaches preparing them for competitions.

The Quality vs. Scale Problem in Mental Health

The mental health crisis will worsen unless we fundamentally rethink how we solve it. I had a horrible BetterHelp experience a month ago, and a client had an equally terrible experience on another platform — so bad she felt worse than the tragedy, she came to discuss with the provider. We see unregulated influencers, and coaches on social media preying on people in need. As an ICF certified coach who’s worked on these platforms, a therapy veteran, and a startup scaling ops leader, the current approach is broken on both sides. Are large platforms making support more accessible? Yes, and it’s great, but they’re also underpaying and burning out practitioners, while providing subpar support. Ideally we see government regulation, unionization, and fundamental business model/supply side changes, Teach for America-style subsidized programs start to pop up, and new ways of tackling mental fitness that rethink how we train and support providers, and how we deliver quality care. Consumers will become more discerning and go out-of-network for highly credentialed practitioners, but that’s not a systemic solution.

The AI Outsourcing Mistake

I am not someone who is anti AI replacement. But companies will continue to outsource whole functions to AI, then quietly roll back when reality hits. The pattern: outsourcing the wrong or too many functions too quickly — nuanced areas like therapy, customer support, Friend Agents, lead gen, and legal work that require human judgment, empathy, and contextual understanding, or outsourcing too fast. The mistake isn’t just technical — it’s philosophical. The future is autonomous, BUT is is human centered, and should benefit humans. The result of AI centeredness without caution? Customer backlash, serious risk/ethical issues, and competitive disadvantage against companies that use AI more strategically and thoughtfully. Developed EQ of their people would lead to smarter, AI strategies.

The Great Skills Shift

The AI startup bubble will burst, and the most successful companies will be those who leveled up their own leadership skills or sought leaders with EQ, empathy, and practical wisdom to complement their technical expertise. I have been in the process of looking for the right early stage leadership opportunity, and a friend at a VC passed a company my way. They were looking for a strategic senior role, to run SQL queries. Why hire a senior role to do what AI tools do already? Investors want sustainability, so they’ll partner more deeply with founders; mentorship and leadership support, and they’ll continue to invest in more founders with humility and self-growth as a core value, or encourage a co-founder for balance.

Meanwhile, demand for essential workers — skilled trades, healthcare, teachers — will continue to skyrocket as healthcare declines, and while white collar tech skills become lower value. So unless government subsidizes these roles, or for-profit companies emerge like Lambda, or Code Academy, we’ll be up an essentials sh*ts creek.

The Return to In-Person Connection

As a coach, and a mom, I value flexibilty and autonomy. But as an extrovert, and as a human, I feel isolated, and can’t wait to work in an office somewhere! As people spend more time staring at screens and lose basic social skills, those who can connect in person will thrive. Social anxiety is skyrocketing, dating apps are failing (with new leadership and biz models to boot), and an entire generation is struggling with face-to-face interaction. People with strong interpersonal skills will develop the social capital to succeed in business, relationships, and life while others become increasingly isolated. More social focused companies will emerge facilitating local, experiential relationship-building because people are desperate to reconnect offline, and great companies will invest in fostering human connection with their employees.

Software Engineering’s Sexy Status Decline

No shade to software engineers —but the industry is losing its mystique (as part of the white collar decline), and the days of getting hired at six figures for being able to code are gone. As AI handles more coding tasks, many software engineering jobs will become equivalent to today’s customer service roles — lower-paid, less prestigious entry points into organizations rather than the golden ticket they once were. Engineers with strong leadership skills, ability to have vision, analyze in between black and white, or deep niche technical expertise will transition and thrive to management.

The Rise of Sound Decision-Making Roles

Pre-AI, we were already entering an epidemic of indecisiveness. People increasingly outsource decisions and can’t function without a tool, content, another person, or AI chatbot guiding them. There’s massive fear of choosing the wrong path or making the wrong call (this is a hallmark area of development for high achieving folks I work with). This creates huge opportunity for people who can make sound decisions using critical thinking and soft skills, and enjoy being accountable for them in ambiguity, post mortem and move forward. Roles like Chief of Staff, generalist operations, strategy, and people ops — more multi-faceted “lived experience” people, and functions will become premium positions with a lot of stark competition, because they require discernment, grounded-ness, and focus — all rare traits when we’re glued to our phones and paralyzed by choice. We’ll see a lot of technical folks moving into these roles, but the ones with strong EQ, intuition and human judgment will thrive.

Liberal Arts Renaissance

Creative and liberal arts professionals in business will thrive because they’re naturally comfortable with ambiguity, subjectivity, and problems without clear solutions — skills that become premium in an AI world. As routine technical work gets automated, the ability to think critically, synthesize complex information, and navigate gray areas creatively becomes incredibly valuable. We’ll also see wealthy families investing heavily in arts tutoring for their children, recognizing these skills as essential differentiators. The creative problem-solving and adaptability that liberal arts education develops will be exactly what’s needed in an uncertain, rapidly changing economy. We’ll see companies hiring more ex therapists, psychologists, coaches, writers, creatives, and others with “non-traditional” backgrounds.

The New Graduate Crisis

As predicted now, white collar entry-level jobs will be gone in 5 years which is where we all learned fundamental skills to propel our careers. If government doesn’t step in, for-profit companies will build the pipeline, partnering with employers to provide talent. We’ll also see undergrad curriculum shift to next-gen essential skills like EQ, compassion, delegation, and AI agent management. Much more will be expected of new graduates, but they’re living for today, not retirement, and resentment will drive revolt if things don’t change to support them. The tables will eventually shift in their favor — but they need educational and government support to make it happen. Assistance aside, if you can posistion yourself as a strong generalist early on, as part of a company’s DNA, you’ll be set up for success.

AI Humanization Roles

I can’t tell you how frustrated I get when interacting with an AI agent about what I think is a simple issue / decision tree. As AI becomes more common in customer-facing roles, companies will realize they need human oversight to ensure empathetic, nuanced interactions. New roles will emerge: AI Empathy Specialists, Human Behavior Experts, and AI Ethics Managers who teach machines to handle gray areas and be culturally sensitive (we see hints of this already on Claude and other agents). These aren’t just tech roles — they require deep emotional intelligence and ethical reasoning to bridge the gap between AI and human experience. The challenge? All these jobs require intuition, compassion, EQ, discernment, and ethics — exactly the skills that are becoming rarer as people spend more time with screens than with each other.

Do I get scared? Yes. But more so, I’m excited and curious. Where there are massive changes, there are always opportunities to reinvent, learn, change, and develop.