Last week, I received a phone call that has become familiar. Vincent, a professional who had read my articles in The New Times, called with a question on his mind: “Is my job safe from AI?” It is the same question I hear at conferences, in WhatsApp groups, and over coffee with colleagues. ALSO READ: How AI in a nurse’s pocket can strengthen Rwanda’s health system After more than a decade working in Rwanda’s digital transformation space, I’ve come to a view that might be unexpected: we may be focusing on the wrong question. Before we go further, it’s worth stating my intention. I’m not here to amplify fear about AI or the anxiety that often fills our conversations about technology and jobs. We manage to do that well enough on our own. My hope is to help us shift the conversation from anxiety to action. I believe AI can be a tool that transforms our lives for the better. And I hope to play a small part in helping a new generation of Rwandans to thrive in it. ALSO READ: When is the right time to expose children to AI? The fear Vincent expressed is genuine. He has watched AI tools emerge that could draft reports, analyse data, and write code. The headlines he reads are alarming: millions of jobs at risk, entire professions facing extinction. His logic seems sound, if machines can do what I do, why would anyone pay me? Vincent believed the safest strategy was to become indispensable by mastering niche skills that AI could not replicate, specialising so deeply that no algorithm could match his expertise. It is a sensible response, but it leans heavily on defence. Over time, those who focus only on defending their current role may find it harder to keep up with how quickly work is changing. ALSO READ: Rwanda speeds up AI integration into learning, teaching So, I posed a different question, the one I believe everyone with a job should be asking right now: How can I take full advantage of the AI boom to not only secure my job but thrive in it? This subtle shift changes everything. Instead of viewing AI as a threat approaching the castle walls, you begin seeing it as a powerful ally waiting to be deployed. The difference between professionals who flourish and those who struggle will not be determined by who can hide from AI the longest. It will be determined by who learns to use it to work better, faster and cheaper. Consider this: a financial analyst who spends three days preparing a quarterly report can now complete it in three hours with AI assistance. Does this threaten her job? Only if she keeps taking three days. The analyst who embraces AI does not just save time, she delivers deeper insights, catches errors that human fatigue would miss, and frees herself to focus on strategic thinking that genuinely requires human judgment. Your employer does not care whether excellent work comes from pure human effort or human-AI collaboration. They care about results, speed, and quality. When one team member produces in one day what another produces in one week, with equal or better quality, the math is brutally simple. Those who take the longest to adapt will inevitably lose their positions to colleagues who augment their productivity using AI. This is not speculation. It is already happening worldwide. This is the part we don’t talk about enough. Rwanda has positioned itself as a technology leader on the continent. Our digital transformation journey, from reducing business registration from 43 days to 6 hours, to building systems that process millions of transactions annually, demonstrates our capacity to embrace change. This same spirit must now guide individual professionals. AI tools are increasingly accessible. What once required expensive software and technical expertise now lives in your browser or phone. By the end of my conversation with Vincent, his anxiety had transformed into curiosity. He asked the question I'd been waiting for: So where do I begin? We came up with a simple action plan. First, identify your highest-value tasks. This is the work that directly impacts your organisation's success. These are where AI augmentation produces the most dramatic results. Second, experiment relentlessly. Spend 30 minutes each day exploring how AI tools can assist your work. Learn through doing. Third, document your gains. Be sure to track time saved and quality improved. Fourth, share what you learn. Become the person who helps others adapt. This positions you not as someone threatened by change, but as someone essential to navigating it. We ended our call with a challenge. In 90 days, Vincent would report back on how AI had transformed his work. The question was never whether AI would change your profession. It will. The only question that matters is whether you will be among those leading that change or those left behind by it. So, instead of asking whether your job is safe from AI, I think a better question is this: how do you become harder to replace in a world where AI is part of almost every role? This won’t come by hiding from it, but by learning to use it well enough that you consistently deliver better work, in less time, with more insight. In the end, AI itself won’t take your job; but someone who knows how to use it better than you might. Carl Mabuka is the Head of Business and AI at Global Kwik Koders, and co-founder of RWAiGHT, a leading AI consultancy firm in Rwanda.
