With the World Economic Forum predicting that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will replace 85 million jobs by 2025, it’s important that you get ahead of the curve. From ChatGPT to visual imagery technologies like DALL-E, the more AI technology advances, which it is already doing rapidly, the more careers will be in jeopardy. 

As a student or recent grad, the great news is that you have the opportunity to prepare for these drastic industry changes. AI use has only really exploded in the last year or so, and although colleges may not teach it yet, you still have time to quickly get caught up and build your resume as you enter the workforce. 

Let’s discuss 5 career paths that are more susceptible to AI replacement and how you can alter your resume to still be an in-demand candidate. 

Journalism

You’ve probably already heard of people, or even personally used, ChatGPT to help with writing assignments. But if you’ve used the tool, you might note that it may make mistakes or have incorrect information. So that means writing and journalism jobs are safe for now, right? Sadly, that is far from the case. 

News organizations such as CNET and Buzzfeed are already using AI tools to write dozens of articles. And these articles aren’t just in English. ChatGPT has translation tools to understand prompts and create content in various languages. Even if you decide to work for a foreign-lanauge based news corporation such as Telemundo, your job still isn’t safe. 

However, it doesn’t mean jobs are obsolete in journalism. You still need someone to check over Chat GPT’s outputs, since they can be incorrect, as well as someone to interview or present information. Instead of focusing on a journalism major, consider majoring in other fields like communications or research science that encompass journalistic skills, yet are not as restrictive as a journalism major when it comes to a stable career. This way, you can still work in media or content creation, but have a larger skill set that isn’t so easily replaced by artificial intelligence. 

Graphic Design

Tools such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion have gained popularity for their use in creating AI Art, which is already threatening the jobs of the graphic design industry. If clients can use these inexpensive tools to get a good-enough product (even if those with graphic design experience can provide a better result), they will still gravitate toward the free tool.

That’s bad news for graphic designers. With 90% of graphic designers working freelance jobs, finding and keeping clients is the #1 priority. But how can you maintain a client portfolio if an inexpensive tool is so widely available?

Instead of focusing on only graphic design, consider learning about and developing skills in a  more in-demand field that can’t be easily managed by a bot, such as becoming a UX/UI Designer. UX/UI Design uses similar principles as graphic design so you can use the skills you already have to easily transition to a more stable field. But because there is much more of a human element involved (it’s called user experience and user interface, after all), this type of design work can’t easily be replicated by AI.

Content Marketing 

Similar to journalism, content marketing is heavily focused on the written word to create content. Although it can be safer than fields that solely rely on writing because ChatGPT still needs to improve on providing valuable insights for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it still isn’t completely safe. As AI tools quickly add new features, you can expect that it will soon address SEO as well. 

Instead of focusing on writing, consider modifying your pathway to become an “AI prompter.” ChatGPT can only work well when it has the correct prompts that will deliver exactly what the user wants, but a lot of people who casually use the tool can’t figure out how the prompting works. Using your writing skills developed through content marketing, you can work to coax various AI tools to provide results. It can be an easy and lucrative transition, with some prompters already earning around $335K!

Also, content doesn’t just mean text. These days, creating video is incredibly important to content marketing across all channels. Aspiring content marketers will want to learn video production & editing skills to their resume in order to stand out from the crowd and secure the best marketing jobs.

Computer Programming

Although coding is currently an immensely in-demand skill, it’s uncertain how safe computer programming is from AI disruptions. ChatGPT can already crunch numbers and develop code, and it’s only getting better every single day (or really, every minute). If more people correct the program's code and “teach” it how to respond, it can (and will) get to a point where it can create code better than humans. Because of this, some tech companies have already started to consider replacing software engineers with AI. Even Google has stated, in theory, that ChatGPT has the same amount of skills as an entry level coder. 

If you want to continue on a technical pathway, consider investing your time in a more “human experience” based field, such as User Interface Design (UI Design). Although the UI field can use AI to help with coding, ultimately website and app design is too dependent on the human experience to be accurately replicated. You need creativity and emotion to make a good design that compels the user, hence why it’s unlikely AI will replace UI designers. 

Lawyer 

For a lot of lawyers, their daily tasks include digesting large amounts of information and summarizing it in a way the client can understand. However, that is one of the main uses of AI tools. If you’ve used it for an assignment, you already know that you can input various articles in ChatGPT and ask it for a summary. As the tool advances, it is possible you would be able to input multiple large documents, such as textbooks, to get a short legal summary. 

44% of legal services could be automated in the future, therefore, you will see less and less early career jobs, such as a legal assistant, as research jobs are replaced by AI. Rather, the human focus will be on exercising judgment in complex legal matters, which will require everyone to skill up to get ahead. If you still want to continue in this field, you will need to wait a longer time to get a higher income role, all the while continuing to rack up college debt. 

If you still want to continue on the lawyer path, you could pursue a career that is more human focused, rather than one that relies on research. For example, mediators and arbitrators help guide two parties towards a compromise or understanding, which involves much more of a human element than just reading and summarizing text.

Want an easier way to learn the skills to quickly get ahead of AI? PathMatch can help you match your interests to various career paths and help you learn the skills to succeed. Download the PathMatch app today!