There's a question that's been bugging me for months: why is everyone talking about AI as if it were the end of the world for those who work with technology? Yesterday I read yet another doomsday article about "jobs that will disappear," and I felt like throwing my phone out the window. The reality is that we are living in one of the most exciting moments in digital history. The digital skills needed today are not the ones you needed in 2020, that's true. But that doesn't mean everything is lost: it means that everything remains to be built.
So, before I begin, let me rephrase the whole beginning. Let's pretend I haven't written anything yet, okay? Let's start again. There's a question that's been plaguing developers and tech professionals for months: why is everyone talking about artificial intelligence as if it were the end of the world for those who work with technology? The answer is simple: because many still haven't figured out what's really going on.
Don't make system "endpoints"
In his book Future proof, the technology journalist Kevin Rose offers one of the most valuable pieces of advice for surviving in the AI era: “Don’t be an endpoint.” In programming, an API endpoint simply passes data back and forth without transforming it or adding value. It's just a bridge. A paper pusher.
Think about it: If your job is to copy code from ChatGPT and paste it into VS Code, you are at risk. But if you can interpret, adapt, and improve what AI produces, then you have a competitive advantage. Stanford's research shows that in 2025 the1,8% of job offers require artificial intelligence skills, up from 1,4% in 2023. Does that still seem like little to you? Sure. It is. But the growth will be exponential: and to sustain it, specific digital skills will be needed. Which ones? These.
Digital skills that really matter
Forget the romantic idea of the lone programmer who solves everything by himself. The future belongs to those who know how to combine technical skills and multidisciplinary capabilities. According to IEEE Spectrum, 28% of software executives expect their workforce to decrease over the next three years, but 32% expect it to increase.
La prompt engineering has become a core skill. It’s not just about knowing how to “speak” ChatGPT, but understanding how to structure complex requests, handle contexts, and get reliable results from language models. It’s the art of turning a vague idea into precise instructions for AI.
Critical thinking and complex problem solving are the most important digital skills
Artificial intelligence excels at specific tasks but struggles when it comes to blending ideas from different fields. As highlighted by several studies, the future belongs to problem solvers, not task executors.
They will no longer ask you to “add a phone field to the form”. They will tell you: “Make the site faster”. And it will be up to you to figure out if you need lazy loading, bundle optimization or simply change the hosting, and in a hurry too.
AI engineering: the exploding frontier
You don't need a PhD in machine learning to ride the AI engineering wave. You need to know services like OpenAI or Claude, understand AI agents, and master techniques like RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). IBM predicts that by 2026 they will have to train 2 million people in AI skills.
The importance of human skills
Ironically, in an increasingly automated world, digital skills are important, but human skills are becoming more valuable. Knowing how to communicate with empathy, explain complex concepts, and build authentic relationships will set you apart from the crowd. As we pointed out in a previous article, those who are excluded from digital lose their advantages, but those who know how to combine technical and human skills dominate the market.
When most communication becomes AI-generated, genuine human interactions will be worth their weight in gold. It’s not a “soft” skill; it’s your secret weapon. The real question isn’t whether AI will replace you. It’s whether you will use AI to replace someone else. The choice, for now, is still yours.
