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The claim that 'professional services will disappear' is a lie. The only ones who will disappear are professionals who cannot use AI.

吹上由樹@株式会社Lean Stack

2026年3月19日 11:36

Hello, I am
Yoshiki Fukiage, CEO of Lean Stack Inc..

[Author Profile]

Yoshiki Fukiage
Representative Director, Lean Stack Inc.

April 2021: Joined the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
July 2023: Resigned from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
September 2023: Established Lean Stack Inc.

Company Website: https://www.leanstack-buzz.com/

YouTube Channel: DX Dekiru-kun
https://youtube.com/channel/UC-f1ZI9MiME-GC0l1gwNf4w?si=WeyqGjBSvVXwSaDB

Another article has appeared: 'AI will make professional services obsolete.'

Don't you see these everywhere lately?

'AI will eliminate professional services'
'Labor and social security attorneys, tax accountants, and administrative scriveners will disappear in 10 years'
'Consider a second career for professionals'

If you open the internet, these kinds of articles are being mass-produced.

I've read them, many of them.

And, I'll give you my honest opinion.

They seem to hit the mark, but they are all off base.

Why?

Because the subject 'AI will make jobs disappear' is too broad.

It's not 'professional services' that will disappear.
The only things that will disappear are 'professionals who do not use AI'.

This difference in resolution will determine who survives in five years.

Today, I'm going to talk about this without mercy.

Now, let's get started.

The reality that there are still offices that spend over a week on payroll processing

Because I provide DX support for labor and social security attorney offices, I have many opportunities to see the 'inner workings' of offices across the country.

The scenes I see there are, honestly, shocking.

They spend a full week every month on payroll for 30 client companies.
They are manually typing in application documents one by one.
They are copy-pasting employment rule drafts from Word templates and making minor adjustments.

It is 2026.
Not the Showa era, not the Heisei era, but the Reiwa era.

I don't mean to mock anyone.
Everyone is diligent, thorough, and makes no mistakes (well, as long as humans are involved, mistakes are bound to happen...).

But, let me say this calmly.
AI can finish that work in 30 minutes.

If you feed payroll rules into AI, it can handle everything including checks in an instant.
Application document formats can also be automatically generated by feeding in the data.
Even for employment rules, if you input the industry, scale, and requirements, a draft will appear in 3 minutes.

This is not a story about the future.
It is something that can be done at this very moment.

The 'full week' of time created here.

How you use this time determines everything.

The single strategy of labor and social security attorneys who are rapidly increasing their client base with AI

Here, I will talk about a labor and social security attorney who is actually making full use of AI.
What that professional did was surprisingly simple.

They handed all the 'tasks' over to AI and used all the freed-up time to 'meet people.'

That is all.

Payroll, applications, document creation. These tasks, which previously consumed 70% of their monthly working hours, were drastically compressed through a combination of AI and tools.

So, what happened?
They had an incredible amount of extra time.

In other words, they became free, haha.

With this time, that professional doubled the number of meetings with the executives of their client companies.

'How have things been lately?'
'Do you have any personnel issues?' They showed their face like a service provider.

As a result, referrals led to more referrals, and their client base is increasing rapidly.

This is the key point.

AI didn't just increase 'work efficiency'.
AI increased the 'time available for people'.

Do you understand this difference?

Efficiency is not the goal.
Efficiency is merely a means to 'reallocate time to what you should be doing'.

And for professionals, what they 'should be doing' is not creating documents.

It is listening to the concerns of the business owners in front of you and building trust.

No matter how smart AI becomes, this is something that can never be replaced.

I believe whether or not you can focus on this will make a truly significant difference in the future.

On the other hand, what is happening at firms that keep saying 'it's still too early'?

In contrast, I have seen many such firms.

'I'm worried about the accuracy of AI...'
'Our work is specialized, so...'
'We're thinking of considering it seriously around next year...'

You were saying the same thing a year ago, weren't you?

I know.

What these types of firms have in common is that
they are buried in 'tasks' and are not using their time for 'people'.

They are overwhelmed with monthly payroll calculations.
Chasing deadlines for filings, they put meetings with clients on the back burner.
Even when new inquiries come in, they turn them down, saying 'we can't take on more right now'.

They are turning down work.

Because they lack the capacity.

But the firm next door is using AI to do the same work in one-tenth of the time, and using that time to increase their client base.

Even though we all live the same 24 hours, the usable time is five times different.

This gap will widen even more by next year.
By the year after that, you probably won't be able to catch up.

'It's still too early' is synonymous with 'it's already too late'.

Don't think about a 'second career.' Expand your current career.

Now, let's return to the topic at the beginning.

The discourse that says 'professionals should think about a second career'.

I completely reject this.

It's not a second career.
Use AI to expand your current career.

Think about it.

The 'labor expertise' and 'trust with business owners' that a labor and social security attorney possesses.

These two things can never be created by AI.

What AI can create are documents, calculations, and drafts.
In other words,the 'tasks' that have been stealing your time until now.

Conversely, the moment you hand over tasks to AI, only 'expertise' and 'trust' will remain in your hands.

Isn't that the essential value of a professional?

AI won't steal your job.
It will simply take over the parts of your work that 'don't have to be done by you'.

What remains is only the 'work that only you can do'.
This isn't a threat; it's a huge opportunity, isn't it?

Even if you triple your number of clients, your workload won't change.
Even if you increase it fivefold, AI will handle it.

Your capacity will grow by an order of magnitude.

If you have time to think about a second career, think about using AI to increase the capacity of your current career fivefold.

That is overwhelmingly more realistic and overwhelmingly more interesting.

Finally, just one thing.

Those who have read this far are likely people who are seriously thinking about how to engage with AI, either as a professional or as a small-to-medium enterprise business owner.

That is precisely why I would like to say one last thing.

You don't need to read any more articles that talk about AI as a 'threat'.

Those are just written by people who want to stir up anxiety to gain page views.

What you should be reading are only the concrete discussions on 'how to use AI and how to change your work'.

And, even better than reading, is trying out AI just once today.

ChatGPT, Claude, anything is fine.
Claude is recommended. Of course, it depends on your work.

'I received an email from a client regarding labor consultation. Create a draft for a reply.'

With just this simple prompt, the world will change.

If you think that's a lie, please try it.

It will be over in one minute.

And that one minute will be the first step toward 'expanding' your career.

I am convinced of that.

That is all for today.
Thank you for reading until the end.

Look forward to the next article.