AI and the Workforce: A Panel of Hype, Humor, and Hope
Disclaimer: Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. EnjoyTopics: AI, Tech, Founders, Funding, Workforce, Skills
Okay this next event I literally don’t now what it’s about - Tech? AI? And just I like this location and it’s been a minute since I came here, so I decided to join.
Why Attend: I signed up for this and was able to make it last minute. The owner of this place is so nice and I jsut want to be more social lately. It’s that simple hahaha. I’m a social girl these dys. I can’t get enough of socialization!! Duh.
PHOTO COLLAGE AND COMMENTARY
NOTES FROM THE EVENT
They do lots of policy advocacy and then remind everyone of the capital of Washington State- its Olympia. lol
They said thank you to the leadership circle and want to share a few more things at the close of hte event. HOLY crap there are a lot of famous companies that work with the Things Group.
Oh yeah this event is about AI workforce. Thought so . One guy I ran into said this is about healthcare, but luckily he was wrong.
The panelists are going to introduce themselves
OH but I ran into someone I really like while here, he’s the guy I sat down on teh floor with and chatted with tile two months ago. A super cool guy. Fun vibes and I wanna be his zBFF you know? But he said theres a guy here I need to talk to who will give me $5000 worth of credits for my blog? I told him to connect us later. I need to know more!! Also saw another guy I met a few nights ago here. My goal to be more social is workign!! I literally love it. And I am SOOOOO fucking hyped from that concrete tour I went on. Hahahah like I’ve got he concrete factor high like no other. Was wild.
Okay these guys are introducing themselves - OH one of the guys on stage pronounces his name really carefully - it’s the guy who I was told to talk to. He said if you don’t know “google cloud” google it. LOL.
He works with founders, investors, and supports about 350 accelerators and works with 6,000 founders. He works in customer service.
Get a sense from what people want to hear about - how many of you want to hear about AI workforce? How many about workforce in the startup space?
Also they will have Q&A in the end. AI is changing the workforce, right? You are seeing it in your work. Let’s start with something that is not being said: what is one major way AI is changing the workforce that people aren’t fully understanding?
They call the mic a hot potato and say he’s got it - to answer it first.
Many people think AI will just take away jobs, ut actually the WEF says it’s going to add 150M types of jobs and a net addition of 98< jobs. Fear of change will actually be positive in the long run.
For AI forest figure out how you can make changes for your own life and then figure out how you can help others.
If you’ve worked in tech for 20 years, you’ve seen things like this before. Don’t only think about skills to list on a resume but durable skills. Who are you? Not just whats on a resume.
Think about AI as a tool and really like you have a choice in how you use AI. As a parent, you have a webinar round to learn tools in AI. Having a choice in what they will learn, how they will learn, and you get to shape that as a parent.
We have a lot of folks in the room thinking about tech or already in tech. How is AI changin what employers look for in candidates today?
When it comes to AI - especially within the tech space - not just whats on the resume, but what can you actually do? Having projects and show you you can build something, take AI, and use AI to bring it to a reality. A lot of peopel are familiar with AI from a prompt, but you need to understand how it works behind the scenes. How does it produce the inference/outfit. And how can you change the perimeters to get what you want.
Understanding how it works behind the scenes helps you find more schuss. Then you can maintain and build. The behind the scenes part is where ether is a huge gap in AI
AI developer, thats were its at right now.
What are you seeing in teh industry? Recent alums will say they just got hte degree and now AI is taking over everything.
But you’re not that far off from being someone who can run AI infrastructure. There are ways to show portfolio projects you can show empoloyers. Show how you can run workloads off of skills.
There’s definitely ya very difficult time for entry. Level college students right now. People doing more clerical skills. That will go away. One thing suggested is not, like, everyone thinking not to go to college - don’t learn anything, just promote things.
No, you’re going to need to go to college to learn masters ’s and PHD. AI is doing everything you learned in undergrad. You need to learn more, use tools, and learn whats next from there. So we don’t have to use an abacus. We use a calculator and now we use AI.
It’s going to be spicy, hot take. I disagree as far as having to go to college to do it. AI is accessed a lot different Han back in the day. We can get more information. There are tonds of programs. Programs in here are designed to educate people. There is a traditional way, college. But a lot of peopel are street smart, go getters, and can go a different route to get them places liek this. No shade.
Rebuttle - he says that’s absolute right, theres not one way for everyone. But people in that path, a lot of peopel are going that path. A lot of friends didnt’ go to college. But folks in that college path, tehy’ve invested a lot of time and money, it’s not like it’s just going to go away.
College has always symbolized a broad knowledge rather than specific. That remains important and always will. WGBU were made to serve the nontraditional mode. Students who worked d10 years and never thought college was for them.
Other models are cheaper, faster, and just need people to break through a paper ceiling
This guy’s full job is to teach peopel about AI - folks who have been laid off. In these spaces, thinking “what next”.
Some of us came up in a generation that said, “this is the way to success” and today in 2026, this is not the case. We can’t really figure out how to get forward if we don’t realize how to heighten the other option of how to get into spaces too. It’s not servig the reason why peopel joined. I t was supposed to be a safety net and unfortunately its not
That the conversation we need to be having, so that when this paper doesn’t catch you, you have an alternate way to get back in.
So for this crowd, Washington has a robust post 2ndary system. 2 year, 4 year, bootcamp, all the things
Lol I like this emcee
This perspective around skills. Technical skills, I appreciate cause I hear about human skills. Thats the number one skquestion I get asked. I think about critical thinking, communication, and are those the most important skills to develop in the next 1-3 years or are there other skills we don’t think of? What are the skills
One guy is laughing that they handed him the mic liek he had something to say - in the AI space, one skill is the idea of being able to work backwards
My jaw is dropped
How to bring a successful AI project is figuring out the problem. From the actual problem, how to work to make sure every component has been met so you can build it
Its great to have an idea but learn how to work backwards, so you can build it
Wow this is great advice. Dang
Being able to understand how things work behind the scenes.
But if you don’t understand where data is hosted and stored, you’re notdoign as much as you think you do.
Data governance will be a skill. And AI is in so many different fields and areas, there’s going to be so many different legal things you have to understand when it comes to AI.
Think about the Super Bowl that was heavy with AI. The dunking donuts commerical. Those are actual celebrities. They had to legally be clearances
I wanna take a break really quick and drink water - pause my typing hahaha.
How do you upscale or pivot without starting all over?
So how am I doing it and why it’s important for everyone my age with 25 years int he workforce with a college degree.
I experiment, have a learning mindset. A tenet mindset. An idea of how to 10x it and how to use tools? I feel liek a superhuman with AI. I get on there and use it when I talk to founders. I’ve talked to many of you guys. Don’t just tell me about I t- I want to go use it. Give me the link, I want to use it, how do you play, is it relevant to what I’m doing?
Dive deep into wahtever knowledge someone has to dshare with me and figure out how to use what they’re doing
Waht’s going to happen is, you know, the large companies you’re seeing hte layoffs. It’s going to get worse. And the thing isn hat being int he startup - corporatate to startup, this is where the innovation is happening. You guys are the leaders in AI probably in the room, everyone is knowledgeable about it. You guys have the leading edge. Large corporations are going to need people like you.
Even if it doesn’t work out great, you’re always learning and on the cutting edge right now
Yayyy hahahah. I feel like a champion finally for the first time in a while
I remember dial up, minutes on my cell phone, using a payphone. Tech is changing and will keep changing. Dont’ look at it as reaching the destination. No. Now we have to learn how to FaceTime. Going tfrom t9 to regular to bluetooth. Put that same energy and passion into AI.
It’s not going anywhere, learn how to use these everyday features we do in our dsay-to-day jobs.
Look at it more like a “hey, this just me being a better person for what I bring to the table.
Do it for yourself, learn for yourself, then you can present waht you’re bringing to the table for someone else.
Honestly, the workforce sucks right now. So how can you outdo the person sitting right next to you. Answer those questions and it starts with portfolios and when you think about retirement, make sure you’re finding roles and careers that bring joy.
Let your passion lead you cause it’s the well that won’t run dry.
Seattle is a tech hub. Most students are working for jobs that don’t exist. You may work for trucking, large infrastructure, local government.
Trade skills are going to become more important. You don’t need to sit in front of a computer. Future real alliance. Trade, aerospace.
Soon it’l be Q&A - wow this. Has flown by.
2025 said Washington is growing faster than most peer states in VC but we have a scaling problem.
How is AI changing how startups are built and scaled? What is the real opportunity if you embrace AI early?
- perfect question for me - he saysWhat’s changing? Obviously the product development cycle is super compressed. Trying to figure out and reiterate product development and finding your product market fit is faster.
Cost of development is down 30% or more. Huge compression as a startup to take your idea and bring it to life. Have real customers on it and using it.
From a VC perspective? They are not looking anymore for “hey I have this idea and wanna build it” - tehy want to see it, use it, and see coustomers already on it.
One other thing heard its hat they’re being more scrutinizing for hte cost of your inference. If it will cost you more to deliver services on AI. If you wanna use ChatGPT vs Gemini, and the number doesn’t work for your company, tehy won’t invest in you.
If you really wanna scale, you gotta go talk to VCs and thats a route - you may not decide to do it, but get ready to be scrutinized with tough question, its good for your business.
The tech alliance is hosing an investor showcase and summit at a local big company.
Okay I wanna stop typing. IDK. Now it’s just Q&A and I dont wanna write them down… . Well they said give one piece of advice to be competitive
Learn how ti works behind the sevens. There are not enough peopel understanding the mechanics. Behind the scenes that allow these inferences to happen. Understand the different options out here. Dont’ get stuck in just one. Learn about all the programs that exist out there and be flexible
You need the lifelong learner mindset and be comfortable with ambiguity.
This is not the time to sleep. Work 24/7. Want to learn. After hours. If you’re falling asleep on the wheel you will lose
Stay curious and network. This is really how you stay competitive.
Don’t wait for permission go et starte.d. Just start.
At the end of the day ‘revenue’ is the influencer.
These days the ability to think and present clearly is invaluable. Psychology is one of hte top degrees. Philosophy. “Communications” is one of the best degrees you can get these days
F(ck yeah !H!H!HHhahhaa you know in school I studied “communications and media” and “information science and tech” bro…. I am the future!! Ahhahah. Omg this event is hyping me up.
They’re talking about accelerators and incubators. Maybe I need to look into this option.
At the end of this event, a friend introduced me to that guy and he gave me the link to an event where i can get 2k - 350k in funding…. so I applied and lets see what happens. I feel like this may have been a life-changing event!!
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
