Professors, AI Is Coming for Your Tasks — Not Your Identity
Diversifying Your Academic Career
In January 2023, I began teaching our university’s core Digital Literacy course—a class I’d been “voluntold” to lead by my dean. One of my PhD concentrations was in technology and innovation management, so I was a natural choice. Still, the course was showing its age.
Originally designed in the late 1990s during the rise of the internet, the syllabus focused on search engines, databases, and spreadsheets. I wanted to bring it into the post-social media era, helping students understand not only the risks of living online (data privacy, misinformation, surveillance) but also the opportunities in personal branding, platform-building, and digital career capital.
Having built an online platform around my Harvard Business Review books, I designed the course to balance risk mitigation with strategic self-positioning. Then, one month into the semester, ChatGPT launched.
I had to try it immediately. My first prompt was basic:
“How do I teach ChatGPT to my students?”
Within seconds, it returned a structured, pedagogically sound lesson plan. Better than what I would have drafted under pressure.
Two thoughts hit me in quick succession:
“This has huge implications for my students.”
“But what does this mean for me?”
That second question stuck. I wasn’t just teaching digital literacy anymore. I was confronting the automation of my own professional skill sets. And the implications went far beyond the classroom.
The Disruption of Higher Ed
That moment marked a turning point in how I viewed the academic career. While colleagues debated whether AI-generated text constituted cheating, I was focused on the broader disruption underway. One that is reshaping how knowledge is created, distributed, and valued.
AI isn’t replacing professors outright (yet). But it is coming for many of the tasks that once defined our value:
Lecturing: Platforms like Khan Academy now use AI to tailor tutored lessons adapted to individual learning styles in real time.
Grading: Tools like Gradescope and Canvas AI are automating feedback across disciplines, from short answers to essays and code.
Research synthesis: Tools like Elicit and Scite can summarize articles, generate literature reviews, and even propose research directions within seconds.
And students? Increasingly, they’re turning away from costly classroom experiences toward other forms of learning:
Online influencers who translate ideas into digestible stories
Coaches who guide professional development and offer transformation
Platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Maven, and Skool that blend social learning with tangible credentials
The shift is from professor as gatekeeper to professor as one of many content providers, and often, less agile, less visible, and less connected to audience needs than the alternatives.
From Tenure to Intellectual Leverage
For most of the modern university era, tenure was the summit. The pinnacle of academic achievement and the foundation of job security.
Tenure still matters, of course. But it’s no longer the fortress it once was. It is no longer the ceiling. It’s the floor. It’s not a guarantee. It’s a starting point. And one that’s becoming less stable by the year.
According to the American Association of University Professors, only about 30% of U.S. faculty today are tenured or on the tenure track, down from 78% in 1969. Most faculty are now contingent, working on short-term contracts without job protection or a clear promotion path.
And the pressures are growing. Financial constraints and institutional restructuring are part of the story. But so is politics. In states like Florida, Texas, and North Carolina, lawmakers have introduced legislation to eliminate or severely weaken tenure, tying continued employment to performance reviews, student feedback, and in some cases, ideological alignment.
It’s not just external pressure. A 2023 Inside Higher Ed survey found that 35% of provosts now support post-tenure review tied to performance metrics. And a 2024 Eduventures forecast projects a further 10–15% decline in tenure-track roles over the next decade, particularly at regional and less-selective institutions.
Tenure is becoming a narrowing privilege, one that should be complemented by broader forms of intellectual leverage.
That leverage can come through the diversification of influence and platform. Academic careers built solely on peer-reviewed publishing and service contributions may no longer be sufficient in a world that increasingly rewards visibility, relevance, and public engagement.
What AI Can—and Can’t—Replace
A 2023 McKinsey report estimated that 60–70% of educator time is spent on tasks that are partially or fully automatable like lesson planning, content delivery, grading, even basic feedback. These tasks, while necessary, are not where our deepest value lies.
Academic careers are built on the creation and transmission of knowledge. But too often, our daily schedules are filled with repetitive or routine work that can be done by algorithms.
What can’t be automated is what makes you a scholar:
Mentoring a first-generation student through moments of identity and self-doubt
Guiding a senior team through the complexity of digital transformation
Facilitating an executive education session where frameworks meet lived experience
Translating rigorous research into a compelling Harvard Business Review article that reshapes practice
These are not check-the-box activities. They’re acts of judgment, synthesis, and relational intelligence. They’re how knowledge becomes wisdom. And how academics become indispensable.
Building a Thought Leadership Portfolio
Thought leadership should be seen as a strategic expression of the academic mission.
Most tenured and tenure-track faculty are trained to create one type of knowledge: insights that speak to disciplinary audiences. But those same intellectual tools—critical thinking, model-building, storytelling, synthesis—can be directed outward, toward broader publics and professional communities.
Here’s a portfolio model gaining traction among high-impact faculty:
Scholar: Continue to publish original research, but also write for practitioner audiences, offering frameworks and language that resonate with decision-makers.
Educator: Teach not just in the classroom, but across modalities—executive education, online platforms, cohort-based programs.
Advisor: Engage with real-world problems, helping organizations apply your insights in situ.
Storyteller: Craft compelling narratives that clarify complexity and motivate action.
Entrepreneur: Develop scalable offerings—courses, toolkits, communities, and other thought leadership platforms.
This isn’t speculative. It’s modeled by peers across the field. Consider:
Amy Edmondson, whose psychological safety research led to diagnostic tools and global advisory work
Herminia Ibarra, who reshaped how we think about career identity, through both scholarship and executive practice
Scott Galloway, who turned academic lectures into influential media platforms
Faculty behind Management and Business Review (MBR), who blend rigorous insight with accessible formats to reach managers worldwide
These scholars didn’t leave academia. They extended it.
Build Your Portfolio Identity
In the AI era, knowledge is abundant. What’s scarce is trustworthy interpretation, clarity, and connection.
As a professor, your most durable advantage isn’t just what you know. It’s how you think, how you synthesize, and how you help others navigate complexity.
That’s what a portfolio identity captures. Not a single role, but a layered professional narrative. One that reflects your scholarship, amplifies your insights, and delivers value where it matters most.
Stop thinking of your work as a position.
Start thinking of it as a portfolio.
Start thinking of your voice as academic soft power.