AI Impact Score: How Will AI Impact Your Industry and Career?

An opinion piece from Dr. Christine Izuakor, Founder and CEO of Cyber Pop-up

Everyday I was getting the same question: "How Will AI Affect MY Job?"

In the last month, I've received dozens of text messages and calls from my siblings, friends, parents, and customers asking how AI will impact them.

The more I engaged in those conversations, I quickly realized there is a huge problem brewing in our communities. And if we don't do something about it now, there are so many people who will be left so far behind in the next year that it will be detrimental to our progression as a society.

The words I would use to describe these conversations? Astonishment and Fear.

Any time there is fear, there is a risk that people will either face it or withdraw and hide. Historically, in situations like this, there are overlooked communities that are more prone to hiding. But we cannot afford to hide from this movement and it is my goal to change that.

The good news is that this is what I do. I find creative ways to  transform fear into empowerment and action. In this article, I'll detail exactly how. 

How will AI impact my job?

16 Years in Cybersecurity Taught Me: Fear Kills Progress, Understanding Creates Power

I spent 16 years in cybersecurity, and a huge chunk of that was in training and awareness. Biggest lesson learned early on? People avoided cybersecurity because they feared it. They thought it was too complex, too technical, too intimidating. But the way to overcome fear isn't to avoid something – it's to understand it better.

I'm applying that same logic to AI now. Instead of letting people spiral in fear-based conversations and doom-scrolling through "AI will take all our jobs" articles, we need to give them actual understanding. Real data. Personalized insights they can act on.

Because here's what I noticed: every conversation about AI and careers was asking the wrong questions.

The Current Conversation:

• "Will AI take my job?" (Wrong question – too binary)

• "Should I be worried?" (Also wrong – worry without action is useless)

• "What should I do?" (Getting warmer, but still too vague)

The Real Questions:

• "How specifically will AI impact MY role in MY industry?"

• "What are my actual growth opportunities in an AI world?"

• "What's my real risk level, and what can I do about it?"

The fear-mongering wasn't helping anyone. What people needed was awareness and education – the same approach that worked in cybersecurity.

I Got Tired of Saying "It Depends" – So I Built Something That Actually Answers the Question

The specific trigger came when I realized I was having the same conversation over and over again, but I couldn't give people the personalized insights they needed. I could talk about AI trends in general, but what about their specific situation? Their industry? Their role?

That's when I decided to build something that could actually help. Not another generic "AI will change everything" article, but a tool that would give people real, actionable insights about their specific career situation.

What Makes This Different:

• Actual scores instead of vague predictions

• Industry-specific analysis based on real data

• Role-based recommendations you can actually use

• Growth opportunities, not just threat assessments

I wanted to create something that would reduce the fear people were feeling by giving them the understanding they needed to make informed decisions.

futureproof.cyberpopup.com

Plot Twist: I Built an AI Tool Using AI (And That's Exactly the Point)

Fun fact: we built this entire AI assessment tool using AI. And I think that perfectly illustrates the point I'm trying to make about adaptation versus fear.

Back in the day, to build a tool like this, I would have needed a developer, a designer, someone to do testing, project management, and all of these different specialists to generate the insights.

But we built this with a “virtual” AI product designer, an AI software developer, and an AI tester. The biggest discovery during development wasn't about the data we were analyzing – it was about how efficient the building process itself had become.

That was my "aha" moment. This is exactly what I mean when I talk about AI creating opportunities instead of just threats. I didn't necessarily replace a development team – I became empowered to build something I would not have attempted before because of the level of effort, time and cost required. That's the kind of shift we need people to understand.

To build this, we simply pulled data from various LLMs and sources to understand how AI is actually impacting different industries and roles. Not the hype, not the fear-mongering – the real patterns and trends happening right now. People can see scores and then a full page of helpful details around growth opportunities, ways to adapt their skills, and even actionable steps to start adapting.

• AI Impact Score: Overall likelihood of AI disruption in your role and industry

• Growth Potential Score: New opportunities emerging because of AI

• Displacement Score: Risk of role automation

We wanted to give people a complete picture, not just the scary parts.

My Sister Tested It First – Her Hospital Stories Proved We Were Onto Something

We tested this with a few people, including my sister, who works in the medical industry. Now, she's used to me ranting about AI – she's basically been suffering through my AI monologues for months. But when she went through the assessment and started reading her results, something clicked.

She began telling me stories about how AI was already showing up in the hospitals where she works. The insights the tool was providing weren't just theoretical – they were reflecting what she was actually seeing in her day-to-day work. That's when I knew we were onto something real.

The tool wasn't just generating generic advice. It was capturing actual, applicable insights that people could recognize in their own work environments.

I Took My Own Medicine: Why My Cybersecurity Score Didn't Surprise Me (But Might Surprise You)

Let me break down what these scores actually mean, because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what "AI impact" really looks like.

My Own Results (Because I Should Practice What I Preach): Despite being an advanced cybersecurity professional with 16 years of experience, my impact score was pretty high (85+). But the growth potential was also high which was encouraging. Even better - because I am pretty advanced when it comes to embracing AI technology at this point, my displacement risk was low. Honestly, my results didn't surprise me at all. The cybersecurity space is perfectly positioned to benefit from AI, not be threatened by it. People have been screaming for years that there are more cybersecurity jobs than people to fill them. There's too much work and not enough professionals.

AI can help us close that gap. We still absolutely need cybersecurity professionals – there's no doubt about that. But the massive shortage we've been dealing with for over a decade? AI is going to help shrink that gap significantly.

What This Means for Other Industries: Your score isn't a prediction of doom. It's information you can use to make strategic decisions about your career.

• High AI Impact Score: Your industry is changing fast – get ahead of it

• High Growth Potential: New opportunities are emerging – position yourself for them

• High Displacement Score: Some tasks will be automated – focus on the ones that won't be

The Executive Assistant Who Realized She Could Build the AI That Replaces Her

One of my favorite examples came from an executive assistant I met who was trying to figure out how to transition into technology. Any traditional human assistant would be worried that AI assistants would make their roles obsolete.

But here's the reframe I offered her: there are all these AI assistant tools being built right now, and the companies creating them are basically trying to productize what she already knows how to do. If she's an experienced executive assistant AND she understands how AI works, she could be a critical resource to those companies.

Instead of being replaced by AI, she could help build the AI that does what she does.

That's the kind of "aha" moment I love seeing. When people start connecting the dots between the work they're doing today and how it can translate into AI-enhanced work in the future.

What People Are Discovering:

• Skills they thought were "basic" are actually valuable in an AI context

• Industries they thought were "safe" have huge growth opportunities

• Roles they thought were "at risk" have elements that are more important than ever

The Scary Truth: We're Facing a Dangerous Gap in Underserved Communities

This connects directly to our mission at TechTable. We create safe spaces for people to come together and talk about often intimidating tech topics, connect with each other, and actually have a good time doing it.

In this era when AI is such a common and scary topic, what better time to connect with people who are going through the same things? Sometimes they're in your same industry, sometimes they're not – but hearing different journeys, different approaches, different discoveries helps everyone learn and adapt.

When people have real information instead of fear-based assumptions, they make better decisions. Those better individual decisions create ripple effects in teams, organizations, and entire industries.

Over the next few years, there's going to be a huge widening divide between people who got on board early and started learning these things – creating a competitive advantage around AI – and people who got caught off guard because they didn't pay attention.

That gap is concerning. And I think it's going to be most prevalent in often-underserved communities.

That's why discussions like this and resources like this matter. That's why education and awareness matter. That's why creating spaces for people to learn and connect matters.

Continue the conversation at TechTable

What Happens Next: From Fear to Action (And Why That's Where the Magic Lives)

I'm most excited about two things as this evolves:

1. Reducing fear and creating space for real conversations – When people have actual data instead of anxiety, they can connect with others and have productive discussions about what to do next.

2. Empowering people to take action – The magic happens when people can take the insights from tools like this and use them to actually effect change in their careers and lives.

This is just the beginning. We're planning to expand resources and conversations like this to create more ways for people to not just understand their AI impact, but to connect with others and take action based on what they learn.

The Future Isn't Something That Happens to Us – It's Something We Build Together

What I've learned while building over the last few years is that the best thing we can do is empower people with insights they can use to make informed choices about whether and how they want to adapt.

AI isn't happening TO us – it's happening WITH us. But only if we're informed participants instead of passive observers.

The Choice Is Yours:

• Get informed about your specific situation

• Connect with others who are navigating the same changes

• Take action based on real data, not fear

The tool is live, it's free, and it takes about 3 minutes to get your personalized AI impact assessment. But more than that, I hope it starts conversations – with yourself, with your colleagues, with your community – about how we can all navigate this together.

Because the future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we build together.

Get your report: futureproof.cyberpopup.com