AI Is Changing Canadian Jobs. Here’s How I Keep Up.

It’s become cliché at this point, but we’re in the middle of a big technological change that’s going to have big impacts on the jobs market in Canada.

I’m a writer. I do graphic design. I’ve worked in product development. If you follow the AI conversation at all, you already that all of these roles are “exposed.” Sometimes it feels like every day we’re just one step closer to my inevitable doom.

Outside my professional work, I’m also an artist. I do creative writing and documentary production. In my creative work, I never use large language models because I want my creative work to reflect my unique perspective, not an LLM’s. But here’s the part I’ve had to accept as a working professional: refusing AI in my art doesn’t mean I get to ignore AI at work.

If you’re a newcomer to Canada or preparing to immigrate, this matters for one simple reason. Canadian workplaces change fast, and they reward people who adapt. And right now, AI is moving from “interesting” to “normal.” In fact, Statistics Canada reported that in the second quarter of 2025, 12.2% of businesses said they used AI to produce goods or deliver services in the previous 12 months, up from 6.1% a year earlier.

I wanted to produce a guide for how newcomers can adapt to the AI-integrated workforce. This is just my perspective and my approach – take what works for you and feel free to ignore the rest! There’s no right way to adapt to technological change, but ignoring the changes isn’t going to help your career.

Think of AI like workplace “literacy,” not a new career

Most newcomers don’t need to become AI engineers. What you do need is the modern version of “basic tool confidence.”

Years ago, when I was first starting out in the workforce, I taught myself the basics of Adobe Photoshop because a job needed it. I wasn’t a designer and I wasn’t amazing at it. But I could do enough to move faster, communicate better with creative teams, and solve simple problems without waiting for someone else. In a lot of workplaces, that kind of competency gets you more respect than it probably should. (If you’ve worked in an office, you know what I mean.)

AI is starting to function the same way. Not as a magic button, but as a tool you can direct. And you don’t need to wait for your manager to teach you – you can start playing around with AI tools now. That being said, do not share sensitive workplace information with AI systems and, if you plan to use AI for your current job, be sure that its use doesn’t violate any company policies. If in doubt, ask your manager.

The skill that matters now: staying current without drowning

One of the most useful things you can do is build a simple “keep up” habit to stay current on AI advancements. I follow one AI journalist religiously – Casey Newton. He runs a weekly podcast with the New York Times called Hard Fork and publishes articles on his news site, Platformer.

I listen to Hard Fork each week to find out if there are any significant changes I should be aware of. Then I follow up by reading Casey’s articles, if it feels important.

In the most recent Hard Fork episode, they talk about Anthropic’s Claude Code, which the company describes as an “agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal.” In plain language: it’s a tool that can take a goal in everyday English and help code software with far less manual work than before.

What struck me was how quickly the conversation moved from “this is for developers” to “this is for anyone who can describe what they want.”

Casey says the quiet part out loud, that Claude Code has “made it easier than ever for somebody who is a total ignoramus when it comes to coding to make some pretty cool stuff.” And later: “If you have an idea… you may be able to build it.”

This matters for workers in Canada. You can gain an advantage in the workforce by demonstrating a capacity to learn how to do new things, use new technologies, and produce quality work.

A personal example: I ‘vibe coded’ a simple app over a weekend

I have no experience coding. But I have worked with software developers to create new tech products. That means I’m used to turning a messy idea into a clear set of requirements.

So I tried a weekend experiment: I decided to try to learn how to use Claude Code. I described a small app idea, broke it into steps, and kept refining my instructions until the tool produced something usable. The most important skill wasn’t coding. It was clarity.

Here’s what I learned (and what I think applies to almost any role in Canada):

• If you can write a clear brief, you can direct AI.
• If you can test and give feedback, you can improve the output quickly.
• If you can spot what looks “off,” you can prevent AI from creating confident mistakes.

That’s also why the Hard Fork examples land. Casey describes building a new personal website in about an hour, with live-updating widgets and a design that looks genuinely professional. Kevin describes replacing his Squarespace site quickly, adding a silly “GeoCities mode” Easter egg, and even building a Pocket-style “read it later” tool for himself.

You don’t need to copy their projects. The point is simpler: the bar for building digital work has dropped.

What’s actually changing in workplaces: doing less, directing more

A lot of newcomers worry about “AI taking jobs.” And this is a valid worry – there are real concerns that automation will replace workers. Just look at this report about how Amazon plans to replace more than half a million jobs with robots.

However, there’s not a lot that we can do to stop this train, aside from making our voices heard in political conversations (get out there and vote!).

For us workers trying to navigate the AI-driven changes to the workforce, a more practical question is: How might my jobs change? And how can I prepare for that?

Increasingly, many jobs look like this:

• You still need human judgment.
• You still need domain knowledge (your industry, your clients, your standards).
• But you also need the ability to direct tools, review outputs, and ship faster.

Or as Kevin puts it in the episode: many workers are becoming “managers of these AI agents.” Similarly, Amazon’s future workforce is expected to be made up of millions of robots alongside “the humans who take care of them.”

That’s a big shift for writers, designers, coordinators, analysts, and product folks. Your value starts to look less like “I produce every line myself,” and more like “I can produce strong results and verify them.”

Related Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist me in writing this article. First, I fed it other work I’ve published, so it could mimic my voice. Then, I gave it a clear brief on the topic. Finally, I’ve spent about an hour editing, factchecking, and tweaking the writing so it feels authentic to my voice.

Next steps to stay up to date

Start small, keep it simple, and stick to it. I suggest a three-point approach to staying up to date with AI advancements.

1. Create a 20-minute weekly AI check-in.

Find an AI news source that you trust and read one article or listen to one podcast each week. Really think about the episode and consider: What does this change mean for my industry? Are there ways I could use this in my work? Is there a way to test this?

2. Run one low-risk experiment.

If there’s a new tool that seems applicable to your career, test it out! Write a resume with an LLM, transcribe a video with a new software, or try out coding a website or app from scratch.

3. Adopt one rule: AI outputs are first drafts.

Remember that all AI software can make mistakes. AI tools require oversight and checking. Any good manager will be able to spot the difference between an article that was written with a single prompt and one that included heavy editing and tweaking. The same applies to most AI output: image generation, app development, research. Don’t rely solely on AI – use it to enhance your work.

Stay current and keep updated on the latest changes and hopefully you and I will still have jobs in a few years. If not, I’ll see you in the trenches of the war against our robot overlords. Godspeed.

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