Your boss just did your job over the weekend

Author

The AI Exchange
March 10, 2026

Picture this.

You log into your Monday team meeting to the normal pleasantries… pleasantries. Did everyone have a good weekend? 

Then your boss says: "Before we jump in, I want to show you guys something."

They proceed to demo what they built over the weekend using AI.

A full marketing campaign - the strategy, all the copy, a website to go with it, a complete tracking plan, already loaded into ClickUp…

In one weekend. Alone.

Here's what the boss did wrong.

The team’s first instinct is to poke holes. It's not as good as we would have done it. This part isn’t quite right… yada yada

And honestly? Some of that might even be true.

But if you’re the boss in this scenario, you may not realizing what you are communicating (even if you don't mean to): we don't need you anymore.

Even in a healthy team culture, the "look what I did in one day that would've taken us three weeks" demo is just really hard to land. It shakes people, and the defensive reaction is almost automatic.

But here's the thing - if that's happening on your team, you're actually lucky.

You shouldn't shy away from the reality of what's in front of you. That is the reality.

We are still very early in AI. And if your boss is pushing the envelope, that's not a threat - that's an invitation.

Think back to when you were first starting out in your career. Your hungry, figuring-it-all-out college days.

This is that moment. And it's a way better environment to be in than the one where people are still having normal Monday meetings and debating whether ChatGPT is a security risk. (And trust us - those places exist. A lot of them.)

You want to be in a company that's pushing this stuff forward. Even when it's uncomfortable.

What's actually happening to jobs right now.

Through DiviUp, we have a seat in the boardroom at many companies. We are advising leaders on how to navigate changes so big in their organization they can’t ignore them and expect to be in business in 3-5 years.

Rachel talked about it on her TikTok last week, there’s 3 moves we are seeing right now when it comes to companies doing layoffs/thinking about headcount:

  1. People not keeping up with AI. This is the one you want to avoid.

  2. People whose jobs are changing. Less about elimination, more about: what does this role look like now?

  3. Whole companies going under. This one's harder to control for - but honestly, if you're building AI skills now, you're investing in yourself regardless of where you land next.

But the thing to understand:

It is expensive to find, hire, and onboard good people. As long as you're good at what you do and people like working with you, you have more runway than you think before any company makes a real cut. Especially in smaller orgs.

So what should you actually do?

Get selfish about your skills - in a way your company benefits from too.

  • Your company should be paying for AI training - ask your boss!!

  • If they aren’t, set aside your own budget

The math:

  • Spend ~$3000 on AI education this month

  • Find 3 small businesses willing to pay $50 an hour for AI training or implementation (ask your cousins, post on LinkedIn, it is not hard to find people that need help!)

  • You’d make your $3K back in just 6 weeks of a 10 hour a week side hustle

Stop thinking about AI as something happening to your role. Start thinking about AI as the thing that's going to make you irreplaceable in whatever comes next.

Alex Hormozi talks about investing in the S&Me500 instead of the S&P500. Cheesy, but that's what this is. Every AI skill you build right now compounds.

One ask before you go - vent to us!

We're hosting a webinar in a couple weeks specifically for people navigating this - and we want to make it as useful as possible.

If you're in a situation like this right now, hit reply and tell us what's going on. Vent to us. We'll keep everything anonymous. And you’ll be the first on the list to get an invite to the webinar.

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We'll see you again soon. Thoughts, feedback and questions are much appreciated - respond here or shoot us a note at [email protected].

Cheers,

🪄 The AI Exchange Team