AI is here to save us, not replace us
A personal story of why I founded Carve
Today I wanted to open up and share a bit more of my personal story that led me to launch Carve — and how I came to fiercely believe AI is here to save us, not replace us.
Happy Administrative Professionals week by the way — hope you feel the love! ❤️
My career journey
Many of you know I started my career as an assistant, and had the incredible opportunity to support a young, successful VC founder when I moved to London 12 years ago.
It was a dream role for me. I absolutely loved the access I got as an EA, seeing behind the curtain how relationships are built and deals brokered at the highest levels. I also loved taming chaos in the day-to-day.. it was a job that really suited me and my perfectionist tendencies (anyone else? 🙋🏼♀️).
I was lucky that my VC boss put a lot of faith in me. He and I built a flagship learning program together in my first few months on the job, and over several years (and many months of negotiation) that evolved into a full-time role as the group's first learning & development lead.
After that I moved into a learning content role for the innovative peer learning app Hive Learning, crafting cutting-edge digital programs for clients as varied as The Olympics, Barclays, Diageo and Jaguar Land Rover.
Hi! This is me in Scotland last year
Reflections on assistants and development
In 10+ years of building learning programs pre-Carve, I almost exclusively worked in leadership development — courses that make leaders better. It turns out that businesses spend a huge proportion of their training budgets on leaders.
Over the last few years I've reflected more and more on that, and on my time as an EA. We all know assistants are critical to leaders' success.
So why didn't I get development opportunities? Why wasn't there a clear progression path for me? Why did I have to fight for it?
Carve’s beginnings and my pivot to AI
I was at a crossroads with my job in 2022. I'd hit a ceiling and knew it was time to move on. I started to think about building my own courses. Value-packed courses for modern, ambitious assistants who deserve to be invested in.
At first I thought I was building career development programs — how to be strategic, how to be a thought partner, how to forge your own progression path within or outside the EA role.
Then ChatGPT blew up the internet.
At first I saw dire predictions for exec support roles. Doom and gloom everywhere.
Then I started using it myself and was blown away by its capabilities, the potential it has to augment our human superpowers.
I started to think maybe AI isn't the end of us. Maybe it's actually the key to unlock career growth.
Why I believe AI is here to save us
When we embrace AI and use these tools to shortcut admin drudgery, we create capacity to take on more.
More strategic work. More interesting work. More of the high-value work that gets noticed and appreciated, like
drafting board papers and reports
managing KPIs or OKRs
people and culture projects
industry and competitor research
The kind of work that makes us indispensable.
And isn’t that what we all want — more interesting work, more recognition?
(ICYMI I’ve written before about what AI means for the assistant role, and the human stuff AI can’t replace.)
When you take on more of the strategic work, you can carve out your own career progression. You can make the case for that promotion and pay bump because what you’re doing now is so much more than the bounds of your role a year ago.
In short, you take control of your own destiny.
Have a great week ahead,
Fi