“My experience with people who doubt themselves is that they will prepare, read everything, they will communicate with the experts, they will do their work with humility because they will not believe they have all the answers,” said the former New Zealand minister, Jacinda Ardern, on stage at the recent Zendesk conference Relate Relate 2025.
After sharing stories of his time as Prime Minister, including his approach to empathic leadership, the struggles of the nation with social networks and his own battles with confidence when entering the global care center, Ardern’s discussion quickly resorted to artificial intelligence.
“It can have enthusiasm or enthusiasm for the opportunity that is advanced,” he said while comparing the appearance of artificial intelligence to an endless list of technological advances in the course of decades.
A landscape of the human being centered
One of the biggest concerns we have been writing with respect to AI since the public prior view of Chatgpt, which opened a new chapter in public artificial intelligence, is its impact on the workforce.
The growing apprehension that AI will replace human workers, particularly in roles that involve repetitive and administrative tasks, continues to play today.
According to Ardern, these fears not only come from technology themselves, but from the past experiences of change workers who have failed them, changes that did not consider the human impact completely.
In his discussion with the audience in Zendesk Relate 2025, it was clear that former New Zealand Prime Minister advocates proactively addressing such concerns through more clarity, guidance and transparency.
Ardern’s approach implies changing the dialogue of one of fear of one of the opportunities: to understand that the works will be redefined instead of completely eliminating.
Although their roles will change, potentially considerably, the leader said that workers must understand that the value they bring to organizations will remain constant.
Of course, artificial intelligence can significantly boost the productivity of workers operating within certain fields, but even AI agents cannot operate completely autonomously, many human contributions still require, whether in development, orientation or correction.
In addition, he highlighted how governments can protect workers at the macro level. Ardern cited New Zealand initiatives, including income insurance programs at a lifetime and learning designed to relieve the transition to this new era of employment.
It is more likely that citizens feel comfortable with such important changes when there is a guarantee and support of their own government.
This is aligned with the need for cultural evolution, where citizens and employees must adopt continuous learning values, innovation and greater agility. Government companies and agencies have most of the responsibility for this, however, workers must be equally proactive in their adaptation approach.
To summarize, it seemed that Ardern is not worried about the impact of AI in the long term. Although he acknowledges that short -term displacement can be worrying for some, a deeper support and commitment of all parties involved, including governments, companies and staff, will finally ensure our continuous role on this planet.
