At a recent graduation speech, former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt acknowledged what many students are already feeling: AI is not some distant abstraction. It is entering the workforce at exactly the moment they are trying to enter the workforce, too.

“There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written,” he said, “that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.”

The students booed. Confirmed receipt, Mr. Schmidt.

And this wasn’t an isolated event. The same thing happened at the University of Central Florida, when commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield referred to the rise of AI as the next Industrial Revolution. The students booed there, as well.

“Woop, what happened?” she said. “OK, I struck a chord.”

A chord is one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is this: brutal.

There is something uniquely brutal about being told to “embrace change” when the change in question may be coming for the very future you have spent years preparing for.

Two weeks ago, I met with a client who asked, somewhat rhetorically, “Who hasn’t been bitten by the AI zombie?”

“AI zombie,” I repeated back to her. “That is brilliant.”

“Yes,” she said. “If you don’t know how to leverage AI, there is a big ding on you.”

Fair enough.

So, there are really two parts to this equation.

The first is practical: how do we learn to utilize this revolutionary technology?

The second is psychological: how do we not let the speed, uncertainty, and fear of it swallow our sense of agency?

Because here is the part I cannot stop thinking about: the greatest risk may not be that AI takes every job. The more immediate risk is that fear itself convinces people to stop imagining themselves as authors of their own lives.

That is the AI zombie.

Not a robot. Not a machine. A human being who has surrendered agency.

So, as a person who believes deeply in agency and is maybe a little too obsessed with group work, this leaves me with one obvious conclusion: I must save the planet one group at a time.

Kidding.

Mostly.

But I do think we need spaces where people can talk honestly about this mishigas without collapsing into panic or resignation.

So I’m starting with one—Still Human: A Circle for Navigating Work, Identity, and AI.

This will not be technical training on AI. Most certainly not! Also, PSA: I am sooooo not equipped to do that. Sorry Brother Michael. (Michael is my brother who is super tech literate and ahead of every curve.)

Per usual, I digress. As I was saying…this will be a space to rebuild agency, to examine motivation, and to harness momentum in a moment when many of us feel like the ground is shifting under them, which makes sense, because it is. 

If you are job searching, career-questioning, graduating, parenting someone who is graduating, or simply feeling unsettled by what AI may mean for your future, I’d love to hear from you.

And if you are in the middle of a job search right now and this fear is not theoretical for you, please reach out. You are exactly who I am thinking about.

I’m putting together a small circle this summer and will shape the timing around the people who are interested.

PS: Last thing, I promise. On Sunday night, I started watching that documentary on Netflix about the dinosaurs. It is called The Dinosaurs and it’s narrated by none other than Morgan Freeman. Anyway, at one point, it rained for one million years on earth. ONE MILLION YEARS. So whenever I am like, omg the world is totally insane, I think about that and somehow I feel better.