AI Is Coming For Your Job... Or Is It？ ft. Adeel Khan
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Hate speech
5
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, we talk to Adil Khan, Head of Capital Markets at Vozin AI, a software-as-a-service company right here in Canada. Adil talks to us about AI and the future of your jobs.
Transcript
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Hi, thanks for joining us. tplmedia.ca for all kinds of great content, new podcasts every day.
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Some days, often, we have several podcasts at launch. And I'll encourage you, if you'd like,
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please support the podcast network. That's how we keep the wheels on the cart. Today,
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we are talking about something that has students terrified. Let me read this to you.
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It's a heavy time to be entering the workforce.
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In 2026, we aren't just talking about robots and factories anymore.
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AI has moved into the thinking jobs that used to be a safe bet for middle class life.
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Now that comes from a graduation speech made right here in Waterloo, Ontario.
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And that's terrifying to me because that's the height of technology here in Canada, many think.
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Talking to us more about AI and the future of your jobs.
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Adil Khan, Vozin AI, they are a software as a service company right here in Canada.
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And Adil is the head of capital markets, which means you do want this AI thing to succeed.
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Well, the rest of us are going to try and tamp it down and save our jobs.
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I look, I believe, you know, the good of humanity, the collective good of humanity.
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But I also believe heavily on how we can advance ourselves as a civilization with this new technology.
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Well, I think you can see that I was trying to blow it up a little bit beyond what it is, because I think everyday life right now, AI, it's helpful alongside being irritating in a 50-50 ratio, I believe.
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Everybody is now filtering AI in their own brain.
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I don't know how healthy that is for human beings to have to detect something so close to reality and understand whether it is or not.
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Seeing isn't believing anymore, and it used to be.
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I mean, if you need to write an essay in 12 minutes that gets you through the graduating process, I think ChatGPT probably has some means of doing that for you.
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But let me ask you, is it kind of an overblown scenario?
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Just to see if these line up with what you're hearing out there.
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21% of grads believe their education is already obsolete.
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And 62% of students are concerned about AI's job impact.
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Do you think these fears are founded in reality?
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But the thing is, most people, especially right now in 2026, they don't know enough
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Now, yes, it's existed for a long time now, but in the mainstream, really when OpenAI
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released its GPT, people really started to understand this.
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And I just think that, yes, it will replace entry-level jobs.
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We're going to see less of the lower ladder on the corporate career almost disappear.
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we're going to see more middle management and senior management kind of operators take over.
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But I would say, yes, I think it's very grounded. I think their fear is real. But I also think it
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stems from the fact that people are not informed. Most people don't know how to use AI. Most people
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are still teaching, treating it like a, like a chat bot, you know? So that's the main product
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that's out there, right? Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. It started as a chat bot, but you know,
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it's extended to agents and extended to different types of prompt engineering. And
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there's so many nuances that they're not communicated in the universities and i would
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say modern day academia and policy and governance it hasn't caught up as fast as the tech has um
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i would say their fears are real and it makes sense but also stems from to my earlier point uh
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a lack of understanding of of what this new technology really is okay let's turn it upside
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down then yeah let's look at the bottom of the pyramid then where most of us stand uh at the
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the moment. It is mainly a chat bot. I really like the feature on my phone that can put a
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mariachi band behind you. That's very convincing and I can send it to you. So there are, at the
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moment, it seems like the general public has a novel sense of what's going on with AI, but we
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are now starting to understand that it shows up in other places. I did a show a couple of weeks ago
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where AI is in the courtroom and it's actually helping truncate the process that can otherwise
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be pretty onerous right the courtroom right uh where else are we seeing huge advantageous moments
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where ai doesn't take the job away makes the job better look i think we're seeing it across
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every single industry i'll say i think we're seeing it everywhere it's just not as advertised
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let's just say and i'll say this ai is great for synthesizing information so if you're in the court
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and you're you know your lawyer or your dealer you're in a paralegal whatever you're dealing with
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that, you know, you're able to pull information and create documents and synthesize information
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well, but that will never replace the leverage that you have from experience.
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And I've noticed this coming from some of my mentors that have really taught me and
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helped me in my career, is that when they use AI, they're using it from 45 years of
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real business experience versus a student coming out of college and, you know, they're
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typing something dumb on GPT and hoping to get some kind of, you know, miraculous enlightenment
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It's the leverage that people are going to see at the top, to your point, are the ones
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that have experience and the ones that know how to utilize the technology.
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It kind of makes me think of something from, I had a Commodore 64, ask your dad.
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And it was the biggest thing you could like put a code in there and stuff.
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And I remember my teacher saying to me, remember Mike, garbage in, garbage out.
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And I think that you're right then that experience factor.
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the human experience on top of the ability to process mathematically, synthesize information
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quickly, filter quickly, that could make experts in the field that much more powerful.
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A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And the way AI can synthesize information, it's like,
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we can't rival that as people. It's humanly impossible. But what we do have, and what AI
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will never replace is the human factor. Let's talk a little bit about what you guys are up to.
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Vozen AI is really specifically in the communication space, I would have to say. Tell us a little bit
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about what the company is working on right now. 100%. So at its core, what we do is we do real
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time contextual localization. So super simple. Something about maybe 51% of the world's content
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is in English, but only really, and don't quote me on the exact number here, but like maybe 20%
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of people. ChatGPT, is the deal lying to us? Just kidding. Yeah. Like, you know, it's interesting
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because 50% of the world content is in English, but only 20% of people access it and can speak
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the language. And so now you have this massive demographic of people that they can't interact
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with the world's content the same way people like you or me who can you know and even for us we
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can't access the other 49 because maybe we only speak english as an example and what vosen is
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able to do is we're able to bring contextual understanding to that layer so as an example
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super simple i speak urdu as a second language luckily i'm fluent um you know i've been brought
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up and you know i was in the environment and in urdu it's really interesting because in urdu
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the word tomorrow and the word yesterday is the same word oh my god it's completely two different
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meanings that's incredible is there a different emphasis on the way that you say it even it
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actually is based on where you format it within the sentence and it's the contextual understanding
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and sometimes you you know someone like me who's native in both languages i'd understand in a
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heartbeat but someone who's not it's like and and subs subbing and and dubbing you can't get the
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same response out of that we've seen that i think netflix has been a good example of that and amazon
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I live in a household with two languages as well.
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And when I see the Spanish treatment of English programming, I'm horrified.
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Not even context is out of whack, literally sentence structure breaks down.
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So now what Vozin does is bridge that gap somehow?
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Really what it is, is it's an experience layer.
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Because if you're watching, as to your point, you're watching something in Spanish and it's
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dubbed in English, I mean, and it's completely haywire.
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It would be the same way as if you were to go to the East and tell people about, you
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know, we use this example a lot, Morgan Freeman, Shawshank Redemption and his acting.
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But somebody in the East who doesn't speak English or the first time, like, you can't
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convey the same essence of the actor, the skill, all that stuff.
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morgan freeman doesn't have a really uh he has a very distinctive voice like you do not want
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something yeah that you need his and how do you guys handle that does that compensate as well
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in other words would i hear it in urdu and still have the same timber and obvious recognition of
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morgan freeman's voice that's the beauty of it absolutely yes because it protects that's what
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our technology protects it protects the individuality of the person's voice the cadence
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the tonality i mean we all speak in different i guess rhythms we all have our own nuances when we
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all speak it's how we communicate yeah and and and our our reasoning model it captures that and you
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would be listening to morgan freeman as though he was born and raised in china speaking mandarin
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with the same voice same timbre absolutely wow and look it goes a step further you could listen
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to any types of music. I was talking to one of our close friends of mine, and I told him, he's a
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very great music guy. He's a disc, he's a collector. And I told him, you can listen to Drake in Hindi.
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I don't know why you'd want to do that, but you can. And any type of music, contextually accurate,
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any type of language, I mean, really changes, again, to my point, it changes how we experience
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the world's content. A lot of language is cultural. Absolutely. Once again, in my household,
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um i might hear uh i will say something to my wife and she'll say no no no yes well that's a
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hard yes just so you know that's a cultural thing more than a language uh thing per se so this
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allows i would imagine for more of that nuance absolutely which is everything absolutely it's
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interesting because even in like in parts of certain parts i'm not indian but parts of india
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I've traveled and a yes often is a effort, like, yes, I hear you, not a yes confirmation.
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But it's understanding and it's totally different.
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Suddenly, if I need to understand something in a part of India that is in the news or
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in technology and a video comes up, let's say on YouTube, I'm interested in the topic.
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First of all, I might see this topic for the first time ever.
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Secondly, it's contextualized from my understanding and my processing of it.
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So for the first time, really, and often maybe this would be the only way that it could happen,
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a real connection is made right because of that context making 100 the the core for us is human
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understanding and i think if we understand each other better i think we'd get along a lot better
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as well wow really that's the that's fantastic okay so now i can almost see that being used in
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jobs that doesn't say that doesn't seem to eliminate a job that seems to increase a market
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increased knowledge yeah that's i'll say this because and of course it involves morgan freeman
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at the at the base of it yeah before anything happens whether it's a deal or morgan freeman
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or our producer nick yeah presenting that content it's that origin remains there through this
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process absolutely it's authentic it doesn't get diluted as it changes i guess uh channels of how
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it's communicated the deal did you come here to freak me out is that what's going on here
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uh that's incredible uh technology so now that might replace translators that might replace
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voice dubbing people but it's not replacing an industry it's not replacing morgan freeman i
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think that's some context to build around it your own technology yeah i'll say this it's a great
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question first of all and i'll position it like this in 1995 or something the the role of a social
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media manager you know if you go up to someone and say i want to be a social media manager like
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what the hell are you talking about what even is that and through the evolution of technology jobs
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have arised like as an example a social media manager right i think with ai it's going to be
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the same thing you're going to see this but in a much larger scale you're going to see a lot of
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entry level jobs dissipate. But then you're going to see a lot of new jobs that are really
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are. And I don't know what those are, to be honest. I think a lot of them might be related
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to operator type jobs. So as an example with me, I'll give you my example. I guess it's the best
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example to give. But I run a department under Invosid. And, you know, we used to have maybe 15
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or 20 people in the department and interns and sound. They're all we don't need them because we
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have agents that can do them. So now all it takes is for me or one other person to just operate how
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many emails did this agent send? How many, you know, did they send XYZ document or what's going
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on? Really, it replaces the, our job as, or I guess it replaces interns and it allows us to
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become operators. So now really what I'm looking for in the right, I guess, hire is, can you
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operate agents? Not necessarily, can you just do menial tasks for me? So can you actually use AI
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the way that we are implementing it can you advance the company with this kind of ai okay
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so what are the jobs that i mean it i don't know that ai is going to replace somebody installing
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drywall or doing plumbing right right uh in one of the the various really important uh fields of
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trades out there the hands-on the mining the industry however i can see ai lending a hand
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finding where a deposit is properly, making things safer in a scenario, assisting in the
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process of many things in the industry. But what do you think some of the jobs that
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we'll start to see in degrees and diplomas and certificates that we'll start to see
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in the next three to four years? Yeah, I think it's a good question.
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I think certain jobs, as an example, bookkeeping is gone. So I would layer this in different
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categories, almost put this in different buckets. There's, there's jobs that will be completely
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eliminated. And then there's jobs that might be changed or, you know, altered because of the use
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of AI. And then there's going to be jobs that are completely created, like as of new, that we don't
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even know as of now, when I start with the third bucket, and I say jobs that are going to be
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created, I would say we're going to see more operator type roles, roles that really you
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function as the executive leading a number of agents through doing different tasks.
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And you're going to see more, let's just say, solo entrepreneurs pick up and you're
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going to see more people starting businesses because the entry gap to starting a business
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and finding a path to profitability has never been easier now than it's ever been.
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Registering a business, you know, AI tools can do most of it and you can vibe code a
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The jobs that will be, let's just say, in the middle bucket, the ones that are going to be
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altered, as an example, I'll give you sales. Like in business development, I gave that example
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earlier. It's less, it's more human in the loop factor. Now it's more about, okay, so the emails
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are being sent out, the legal documents are being sent out, all the smaller stuff that frankly is
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kind of boring and I don't want to do is already done with agents. But now I can come in and I can
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really, you know, talk and I can be the human in the loop. So we're going to see more people
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that are human in the loop aspect that's going to really, I would say, it's going to be more
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important than someone who can send out emails or something. So maybe a business degree becomes
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more feasible because AI is, like you say, that gap is there. I don't think there's that
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layer of programming necessarily that's going to be as huge a function. I don't think we need
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a hundred million programmers, we need much less in the programming. Operators in each area of
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business. So I guess what we're talking about is jobs don't get taken away from AI. Jobs get
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enhanced with AI. In your case, you took a layer of, I guess, interns away that were doing menial
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things and replace your needs with real knowledgeable people who can operate AI, not necessarily
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programming. Right, right. And I'll add on to this and great points. I think in because you
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mentioned business degrees, I think that what's going to be more important in academia is people
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who have personal interpersonal skills, communication skills, people who can connect
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rather than people who can just do tasks. I think that's where we're going to see. And I don't know
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academia is caught up i'm actually not a graduate i dropped out when i was very young and you know
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i had a whole story but um so i'm not too aware of the ecosystem but from my understanding when
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i i have like two years of i had two years of my uh bachelor's in business um i think we're
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going to see more emphasis on people who have communication skills and people who can connect
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with people people who can actually be the human in the loop rather than the people to your point
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earlier is you know sending emails and smaller tasks here's some terrifying quotes it doesn't
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matter if you're a programmer designer product manager data scientist lawyer customer support
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rep salesperson or finance person ai is coming for you that's uh uh misha kaufman the ceo of
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fiverr said that just may of this year uh last year um you know that's a terrifying thing but
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But as I take a look at that list, programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer,
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these are all places where people are adapting to AI and enhancing their world.
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I haven't seen a lot of people replaced by AI in this realm.
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In fact, have you ever tried to get an image from, like, let's say, ChatGPT that was for a presentation?
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you still need that human right in the process that's interesting actually sparks a number of
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thoughts in my head as you mentioned that so yes you do but as of right now you still need that
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person that human in the loop you know that extra designer who could say oh you know this doesn't
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look right or that doesn't look right but the scary part and i'm not trying to scare anyone
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no go ahead scary the the scary part is that it's only it's only 2026 we're still in the early
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stages of this emerging market. And I really believe that as these reasoning models are going
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to get better and better and better. So whatever they can't do now, they're definitely going to
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be able to do later. ChatGPT, it struggled with making consistent images over, let's say, if you
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did five, 10 images, it would have these discrepancies. But now you can find that consistency.
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And obviously, there's other nuances related to that. But we're seeing a gradual improvement. And
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it's not even gradual really it's very it's rapid yeah what is gradual in this uh modern era it takes
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place within hours not days even that's what i'm saying you you can't even fathom this the element
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of speed because things move so fast i mean it's it's crazy because people all these companies are
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coming up you know and the next day uh anthropic you know they do some random update and then like
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100 000 companies go obsolete right and it's just it's moving so fast it's almost impossible to keep
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track of. Here's another quote. If you're looking for a path forward, the data shows a massive
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shift toward human-centric physical world roles, careers like nursing, psychology,
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skilled trades like electricians and HVAC, and high-level strategy. They're seeing record low
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unemployment because they require physical dexterity or high-stakes empathy that AI simply
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cannot simulate. I think that's a great message in all of this. The human element of society
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really does still have a foundation. Even if you look 10 years down the road,
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I don't think AI is installing, maybe if robots are so online and so achievable that your HVAC
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company can afford to buy them. So to be honest with you, I'm still waiting for flying cars.
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i know right i was waiting for that jetson yeah and i want my jetpack soon ai is fine but i want
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my jetpack uh but i do think that those positions where humans need care where something needs
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physically built uh you know there's humans going to be involved in that process uh i hope
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yeah it's a it's a good train of thought i see what you're saying um i'll i'll i'll respond to
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this in two ways um the first thing i'll say is that robotics is is is also advancing ai is
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obviously advancing crazy but also on the robotic side like we're seeing like you know you're looking
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at elon musk and you know like all these like new robots coming i think we'll eventually get to a
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point where robots will be able to do these things and as an example i think a machine would
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eventually eventually would be able to do better surgery than a qualified surgeon and then maybe
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the surgeon is like a human in the loop factor. I don't know. That's a very scary. Um, I can't
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avoid that. Yeah. I don't want that. I was still like a human doctor. A hundred percent. My brain
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says no to that. Right. And that leads me to my second. Have you seen the robots that Elon Musk
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is making? I haven't, I've seen them like move around, but I haven't, I haven't done a deep
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dive. Nick, have you seen these? Yeah. They are silly. Really? They're literally, they run around
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banging into things and smashing mirrors by accident. I feel badly for these robots. They're
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Dummies. But I can see the future there. I can see the robotic end of things coming online. And
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like you say, at the speed of which light moves in these industries, we really could be there
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tomorrow. But I think it's a matter of just keeping an eye on those industries and remembering that
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there are billions and billions of us here. We have the ability to prevent or accept what we
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want in technology 100 and you know what's funny and and it's interesting and i have a bit of a
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stat here actually just saw this just before coming to the room here but uh 80 of the companies
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they're back they're backtracking on on ai implementation um not because that it it doesn't
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work um or i guess partly it is because it doesn't work um there's a number of reasons why it doesn't
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work without going into too many details well from hallucinations to right uh just implementation
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like governance policy big tech can't implement ai as fast as small as company can because there's
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a lot of bureaucracy dealing with it and we're seeing real backtrack and i think people are
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going to speak i also think that common sense is going to prevail i don't believe that we're just
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going to destroy ourselves because you know we're advancing technology i think there's there's more
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thought to it than that you know deal you actually did calm me down i really appreciate this uh where
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can people find out more about those and is there a sample up someplace they can see of what you
00:24:10.540
guys do look uh you can drop my email you can always contact me directly otherwise you can
00:24:15.600
visit bosun.ai we're also on linkedin we're giving constant updates we're on instagram
00:24:19.600
we're sharing uh our vision and our mission with the world every single day and uh we'd love to
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have you part of that this sounds so cool uh i will try to include that link in the uh in in the
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uh description of the show and uh i'll make sure that people can reach out to you thanks i really
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appreciate this absolutely thanks man thank you for joining us uh don't forget subscribe tell a
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comment not just about our fashion either by the way a lot of the comments that you make
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turn into shows so we do appreciate them and i appreciate you we'll see you next time thanks bye
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patriotic means looking out for each other and fixing things together true patriotism is being
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in the country you love surrounded by people you love and great weather being a patriot is being
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part of your community and caring for it it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from
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patriotism is the one thing we all share it's okay to be critical of government and still be
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a patriot it's gratitude to your country of course i'm a patriot i'm canadian it's my home
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Well, actually, true patriot love is the mission.