A leader at the Big Four firm EY recently told me that the firm has introduced an AI tool to help their employees navigate the uncertainty around jobs that the new technology is creating.
It’s part of an internal training program known as AI Now 2.0, which prompts EY employees to answer a series of questions about their job, day-to-day responsibilities, and overall deliverables.
They upload the answers to EYQ, the firm’s internal ChatGPT-like tool, and it generates an analysis of how their current role might change because of the impact of AI. The goal is to help them identify the skills, knowledge, and abilities they might need in the future.
Most industries are facing AI-triggered upheaval, but professional services firms are in a particularly tight spot.
Consultants are the experts that other businesses turn to for advice, meaning the pressure is on to make AI work internally. While it presents opportunities, AI is also forcing firms to reconsider long-held pricing models, talent structures, and the services they offer.
Newsrooms are just as exposed to AI’s unpredictability and opportunity.
Inspired by EY, I wanted to see if AI could predict how my job as a reporter will change over the next five years.
My prompts
I told both chatbots to act like “an organizational strategist,” programming them to respond like someone who has done expert research on the possible impact that AI will have on my job rather than provide chatty advice.
I described myself as a “reporter for Business Insider” who covers the Big Four professional services firms and workplace culture, and listed some of my key job responsibilities.
Then I asked for a future role analysis, asking the chatbots to highlight only the most significant changes.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT predicted that AI will increasingly take on tasks like structural drafting, information-gathering, and generating background context in stories. It said there will be a suite of “built-in extras” to support the publishing process in real time, like smart templates and pulling up older coverage immediately.
With tools at my disposal to help speed up the reporting process, my edge as a reporter will come from providing “leaked memos, off-the-record sentiment, organizational politics, and nuanced interpretations that AI cannot surface on its own,” according to ChatGPT.
Polly Thompson/ ChatGPT
I pushed ChatGPT a bit more, asking what new knowledge and skills I’d need to succeed as AI changes my industry, and how I could mitigate some of the key ethical and legal risks.
It told me to develop AI fluency by learning to prompt effectively, evaluate AI outputs critically, and use analytics to flag stories earlier.
On ethics, the big takeaway was essentially: don’t trust AI outputs, and you’ll be fine — a reassuring conclusion that also neatly undermined my entire experiment.
But ChatGPT had a message of encouragement: If I follow its upskilling guidelines and evolve with the tools, then my future job will not be threatened by AI.
“Your role sits at the intersection of access + judgment + context — areas where AI consistently falls short,” the tool told me.
Gemini
Gemini’s response to my initial prompt was more impressive, if a little overwhelming.
The tool produced a 3400-word strategy document for me titled “The Alogorithmic Nexus: A Future Role Analysis for the Business Insider Big Four Reporter in the era of Generative AI.”
Perhaps the deep analysis should have been unsurprising given that Google launched the latest update to its AI model, Gemini 3, this month to rave reviews.
Gemini said that AI’s “primary impact” will be undermining reporters’ ability to get scoops, as companies develop AI systems for corporate surveillance and secrets detection. Journalists need an “immediate upgrade in secure sourcing tradecraft,” it warned.
This suggestion was surprising to me, as typically reporters avoid using any digital footprint a company could monitor when talking to employees — see Business Insider’s guide here. I’m not sure how AI would change that.
Polly Thompson/ Gemini
Like ChatGPT, Gemini said AI tools will help augment the research and writing process, and that I’ll spend less time drafting and more time on verification.
On skills, Gemini gave me more detailed advice, suggesting I develop RAG literacy to improve my algorithmic research and use AI tools like Reality Defender to support digital verification.
Google’s tool was more cautious about my future outlook, saying that my job security is not guaranteed by simply adopting AI.
“Your future value depends on shifting your function from a content creator to an ethical supervisor and veracity gatekeeper over all information,” Gemini said.
A helpful exercise
Simon Brown, global learning and development leader at EY, told me that EY’s tool “helps to show and bring to life in a totally relevant way where AI might be able to help them.”
My test wasn’t exactly lab-grade science — I haven’t seen the responses that EY’s tool generates, or the prompts and programming behind it. What AI means for the future of journalism versus consulting are two very different questions.
Overall, the results didn’t tell me that much I don’t already know.
New AI tools can boost my efficiency, and verification and source-building — which have always been essential skills in journalism — are evolving alongside AI. But it was a helpful exercise to actively think about the future, and a reminder to spend time exploring what’s out there.
