AI takeover? The 5 safest jobs in the market right now

By Lauren Wilkin

An expert who develops AI models has shared what the safest jobs in 2026 are amid huge advancements in artificial intelligence.

"Everyone's afraid their job will disappear overnight," Anik Devaughn, founder and CEO of Wired to Create in Stockholm, says.

"That's not what's happening. What's happening is that the bottom rungs are being quietly removed."

Anik, who builds AI agents, thinks the biggest danger of AI development is that we end up with a generation that can't progress in their career.

He believes that the junior work - the first drafts, the research summaries, and the basic production jobs - are the ones that'll go first.

"That work was never just output," he said.

"It was how people became senior.

"If AI does all of it, we get a generation that can't climb. That's the genuine risk, and almost nobody's talking about it, because it's slow and invisible.

"AI doesn't remove the need for humans; it relocates it.

"It takes the execution and leaves the judgment. I build with these agents every day, and the rule I'd give you is simple: AI replaces work you can specify. It cannot replace work you can only judge."

Anik explains that this means jobs where you have to use your own judgment and taste are the safest. From his experience, he believes the following five jobs are the safest from an AI takeover:

1. The connectors

AI works well inside a domain, Anik says, but it can't jump between them.

The people who connect the dots is where the value is going.

He sites product managers as the clearest example of this, as well as founders, solutions architects, strategy consultants, chiefs of staff, and R&D or innovation leads.

2. The people with taste

Anik says: "Creative directors and art directors are the obvious ones. Also editors, film directors, curators, casting directors, A&R in music, and heads of design.

"All of those positions require years of accumulated experience and development of taste, which is through lived experiences"

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3. Anyone whose product is trust

"Nurses, therapists, senior negotiators. AI can say the right words now, genuinely well. What it can't do is be accountable," he explains.

"When it matters, people don't want the correct answer. They want a human who'll stand behind it."

4. The trades

Anik believes trade jobs like builders, electricians and plumbers are safe.

"Not because a robot can't hold a wrench, but because every job site is different and half the work is improvising against something nobody documented.

"AI is brilliant in a defined space. A crawlspace in a hundred-year-old building isn't one."

5. The people who supervise AI

"This is my actual job now. Every agent in my company has a written brief of what it's allowed to do. That role didn't exist a few years ago, and it's the fastest-growing seat in any company building with this.

"The safest job in the AI era was created by AI."

Anik sites jobs like Chief AI Officer, Head of AI, AI systems architect, AI operations lead, AI safety or alignment engineer, and AI governance and compliance leads.

The jobs most at risk

Anik says there are certain areas of work that are already being irradicated by AI and some that will cease to exist in the near future.

"Entry-level knowledge work, like first drafts, basic research, routine code, junior design production," is already at risk, according to Anik. "This is where it's already happening."

And he says the middle man is likely to suffer.

"I did an interview recently on whether AI replaces middle managers, and my honest answer is that a lot of that role is passing information up and down, and AI does that instantly.

"What survives is the part that's actually about judgment and people."