Gen Z entering the job market today faces a landscape transformed by AI, with companies reevaluating roles, hiring slows, and uncertainty around job security. But according to James Ransom, a research fellow at University College London studying AI’s impact on work, the key to standing out isn’t chasing prestigious job titles. Instead, it’s about mastering the core tasks within those roles and learning how to use AI to enhance, scale, and manage them more effectively. Ransom emphasizes that while AI is reshaping work, most jobs aren’t fully automatable. A closer look at job functions—broken down into individual tasks—reveals that even in high-risk roles, some human elements remain irreplaceable. For example, a senior accountant may have eight out of nine tasks exposed to automation, but the one that’s not—managing a team and quality checking—proves essential. This nuance, Ransom says, is often missed when people label entire jobs as safe or at risk. The real opportunity for Gen Z lies in becoming fluent in AI, especially in understanding what large language models can and cannot do. Most organizations still lack employees who can critically assess AI tools, identify their limitations, and apply them where they add real value. Ransom advises young job seekers to focus on demonstrating tangible results—like increased output, time saved, or improved accuracy—using AI as a force multiplier. He sees the current moment as a brief window of opportunity, what he calls the "augmentation phase." Companies are still hiring to experiment and scale AI use, but this could shift into a "crunch" phase as automation matures and headcount reductions follow. This pattern mirrors the ATM rollout in banking, where banks first expanded staff before eventually cutting roles once the technology became routine. Ransom cautions against both over-optimism and fear. He doesn’t believe we’re heading toward a utopia or an AI-driven collapse. Instead, he expects the human-in-the-loop era—where people guide, review, and oversee AI—to last three to five years. During this time, skills like leadership, social intelligence, judgment, persuasion, and the ability to manage AI systems will be highly valuable. To protect their careers, Ransom urges Gen Z to focus on what AI can’t do: complex human interaction, ethical decision-making, creative problem-solving, and strategic oversight. The most competitive workers won’t just use AI—they’ll know how to supervise it, scale its impact, and build systems that others can replicate. The goal isn’t to replace human work with AI, but to become the person who makes AI work better.