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Career Anxiety
At a social gathering this past weekend I was speaking with a lady who’s son was a finance major with a summer internship at a prestigious bank. Had this been 2015, she would have thought the sky was the limit for her son.
Instead, she expressed anxiety over what his future career would hold given the advances in AI.
“Won’t the machines be able to do his job soon?”, she asked.
It’s a fair question everyone is now asking. I ask it myself.
Finance is a perfect example. Analysts used to build spreadsheets, summarize reports, research companies, pull market data, draft memos, prepare slides, and support senior decision-makers. Today, AI can do much of that work faster, cheaper, and often well enough to change the shape of the job.
Even though I believe efficiencies from AI will ultimately create more opportunities and careers we haven’t even thought about (I wrote about as much here), the transition for many professionals could be rough.
If you’re not yet learning AI, for all that entails, I would strongly encourage you to begin.
Familiarity with AI is rapidly becoming table stakes in any job.
If you really want to future proof your career or learn a skill that could transform your business, I would recommend learning everything you can about agent orchestration.
Agent Orchestration
Think of the word maestro.
A maestro does not play every instrument in the orchestra. They do not grab the violin, then sprint to the percussion section, then jump over to the brass.
Their value comes from understanding the whole composition.
They know what each section is capable of. They know when one instrument should lead and when another should support. They control tempo. They resolve conflict. They shape the output.
That is the emerging role for humans in an AI-native workplace.
Agent orchestration is the ability to design, direct, coordinate, and evaluate teams of AI agents that perform work across a process.
An “agent” is not just a chatbot. It is an AI system assigned a role, a goal, a set of tools, and a workflow. Learn more about AI agents here.
One agent might research while another might analyze. Others might write, check compliance, update the CRM, send an email, or prepare a report.
The human who can connect those agents into a useful operating system becomes far more valuable than the person who only knows how to prompt one model in isolation.
From Prompting to Conducting
Prompting is the first phase to using AI well.
People learned how to ask better questions and write clearer instructions. They learned that AI output improves when you provide context, examples, constraints, and a desired format.
Prompting is still a very important skill.
But prompting alone is not enough.
Instead of asking, “How do I get ChatGPT to write this memo?” the better question becomes:
How do I build a repeatable system that researches the issue, gathers the data, drafts the memo, reviews it for accuracy, adapts it for different audiences, and sends it to the right people with the right approvals?
Instead of replacing one task, you’re redesigning the flow of work.
Why This Matters for Your Career and Your Business
For the new finance graduate, the question is not, “Can AI build a model?”
Yes, it can.
The better question is, “Can you use AI agents to monitor a portfolio, flag anomalies, summarize earnings calls, compare analyst expectations, generate scenarios, and brief a decision-maker before the market opens?”
That is a much more valuable skill.
Orchestration is also relevant to areas of your business.
In marketing, the same pattern applies. AI can write a social post. But an orchestrator can build a system that monitors customer behavior, identifies content opportunities, drafts campaigns, tests messages, routes approvals, and reports performance.
In operations, AI can summarize a document. But an orchestrator can build a system that watches for bottlenecks, assigns follow-ups, drafts vendor communications, updates dashboards, and escalates exceptions.
In sales, AI can write an email. But an orchestrator can build a system that researches prospects, scores accounts, drafts personalized outreach, updates the CRM, schedules follow-ups, and prepares call briefs.
There is tremendous leverage in agent orchestration.
The larger opportunity is to ask:
Where are we still running the business as a collection of disconnected human handoffs, and how could intelligent agents coordinate that work instead?
This is where agent orchestration becomes a business advantage.
The Platforms Are Coming Fast
A new category of tools is forming around this idea.
Some are no-code or low-code platforms designed for business users. Tools like Zapier, Make, Botpress, and n8n help connect apps, automate workflows, and increasingly add AI-driven steps into business processes. You can also use systems inside popular AI chat bots like Claude Cowork where they’re adding more agent like features weekly.
And then there are newer platforms aimed directly at the orchestration layer itself.
One worth mentioning is Paperclip.ing. Paperclip describes itself as an open-source orchestration platform for teams of AI agents. Its framing is especially interesting because it is not just about creating isolated automations. It is about managing AI agents with structures that look more like a company: org charts, goals, budgets, governance, task assignment, and cost tracking.
I’ve been building an financial agent team in Paperclip to value businesses that I will be launching in the coming weeks. I have been blown away by what is possible with a team of well orchestrated and trained agents.
Agent’s as an operating model are rapidly replacing one magic assistant.
What to Learn Now
Whether you’re a young professional, seasoned business owner or someone later in their career, the advice is the same.
Learn agent orchestration and how to manage workflows with AI.
Follow these steps:
Start by mapping a workflow you know well.
Break it into steps.
Ask which steps require judgment and which steps are repeatable.
Then ask which steps could be handled by an agent.
Identify potential roles
Could one agent gather information?
Could another analyze it?
Could another draft the output?
Could another check for errors?
Could another send it into the right system?
Where does a human need to be in the loop?
Automate one simple step in the workflow using one of the tools mentioned above.
I suggest starting small and simple to familiarize yourself with the tools, processes and nuances of organizing agents. Iterate from there.
The Next Step
The parent’s concern for their son’s future is real.
Career paths are vanishing while others are transforming as new ones appear.
The safest career move is no longer to simply have expertise.
It is to become the person who can build agentic systems to lever their expertise.
The person who can see the work, break it apart, assign it intelligently, coordinate the pieces, evaluate the output, and improve the machine.
The next great career skill is conducting.
The future needs maestros.
My goal with The Leap is to provide you each Saturday with the knowledge, tools and lessons learned to help you get started and keep going toward building your future.
Whether you are making the leap to startups, solo-entrepreneurship, freelancing, side hustles or other creative ventures, the tools and strategies to succeed in each are similar.