Rimsha Azhar
Something big is happening in the job market, but most people are still looking in the wrong direction. The fear that robots will replace doctors or teachers makes headlines, but the real change is happening quietly, behind screens, in offices, and across Zoom calls. Artificial intelligence is not wiping out all jobs. It is changing how jobs work, who gets them, and what they are worth.
What is under threat now is not factory work, but office work. The roles once considered safe such as analysts, researchers, HR managers, customer service officers, and financial associates are being quietly broken down into smaller pieces. These pieces are now being automated or outsourced to people in other countries who can do them faster and cheaper using AI tools. A task that used to take a whole team now takes one person with access to GPT-5 and a few well-structured prompts.
Adil Husain, in his Substack article “The Real AI Threat is a 27-Year-Old in Manila with GPT-5,” captures this moment clearly. The biggest disruption is not a robot doing surgery. It is a young worker in the Philippines or Pakistan using artificial intelligence to produce high-quality reports, analysis, and content that used to come from a full-time employee in London or Washington. They are doing it at a fraction of the cost and often with better turnaround.
This is already affecting the real world. Business school graduates are struggling to find work. Experienced professionals in their forties and fifties are watching their roles disappear quietly. Their responsibilities are being divided, digitised, and handed off to someone else. Some of the job titles still exist on paper. But the salaries have shrunk, the promotions have stopped, and the stability is gone.
Pakistan stands at a crossroads. The country missed the last big outsourcing wave that allowed India and the Philippines to grow their tech sectors. But now there is a new opportunity. The world does not just need coders or call centre agents. It needs people who can work with AI, understand workflows, and deliver business outcomes from anywhere. With the right kind of education and training, Pakistan’s young people could enter this space and compete globally.
But we are not ready. Most of our education system still tells students to memorise instead of think. Career advice is outdated. Students are pushed toward conventional paths without understanding what skills are actually in demand. Many graduates leave university with degrees that do not match today’s job market, especially one being transformed by artificial intelligence.
Even those who find jobs are not secure. If your work is repetitive, follows a template, or does not require deeper judgment or creativity, it is at risk. Many white-collar tasks such as data entry, report formatting, invoice tracking, proofreading, and social media scheduling are already being handled by AI. The office worker now faces the same threat the factory worker once did.
So what should young people in Pakistan do? The answer is not to fear technology but to work alongside it. The future belongs to those who can learn quickly, adapt constantly, and think clearly. You do not need to be a programmer, but you do need to understand how AI tools work, how to use them, and how to solve problems in ways machines cannot. Employers are looking for people who can blend human insight with digital tools, not just repeat tasks on a checklist.
The old promise of education leading to a stable job, followed by promotions and retirement, no longer holds. Today’s economy moves too fast. It rewards those who take initiative and update their skills regularly. In this new world, knowledge alone is not enough. The ability to apply it through new technologies is what counts.
A generation ago, factory workers feared being replaced by machines. Today it is the white-collar class that must watch carefully. But this moment also brings a chance. With curiosity, creativity, and the right mindset, young professionals in Pakistan can build careers that reach far beyond borders.
The question is no longer whether AI will change the way we work. It already has. The real question is whether we are ready to change with it.
The writer is a PhD scholar at the University of the Punjab. She can be reached at rimshaazharbhatti@gmail.com.
