If AI Replaces Workers, Who Will Be the Customers?
The real question about AI isn’t productivity. It’s purchasing power.
Like many of us, I’ve been blown away by the sheer pace of AI innovation over the last twelve months and by how much it has already impacted my own agency business. Tedious, rote administrative tasks that used to take days now take minutes. Projects we once thought were impossible, or had tried to build before and failed, can now be executed with tools like Claude Cowork.
To be fair, I didn’t just add AI tools into my existing workflows. I tore apart old systems and rebuilt them from the ground up, assuming AI would be part of the process. I plan to write much more about that in future essays.
But one reality quickly became obvious.
When work becomes dramatically more efficient, you need fewer humans to do it.
This is great news for businesses. Lower costs. Higher margins. Faster output.
But it raises a question that I can’t stop thinking about:
If AI allows companies everywhere to operate with fewer employees, who will be left to buy the products those companies are producing?
Right now, the conversation about AI is mostly focused on productivity. And rightly so. The gains are extraordinary.
But economies do not run on productivity alone. They run on purchasing power.
If enough workers lose their jobs, or see their roles dramatically reduced, those same workers may no longer have the income needed to buy the goods and services companies are selling.
That’s the paradox I find myself wrestling with.
On the one hand, AI could allow companies to operate more efficiently than at any point in history.
On the other hand, if those efficiencies come primarily from replacing human labor, we may be weakening the very consumer base that modern economies depend on.
The real question is whether the economy can adapt fast enough to absorb the workers it replaces.
In the meantime, how confident do you feel about the economy over the next twelve months?
The next twenty-four?
I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
