The dominant narrative around AI in the workplace is replacement. Headlines, demos, and hallway conversations converge on one question: What happens to my job? That framing triggers defensiveness, resistance, and half-hearted adoption. People comply instead of lean in.

There’s another framing that unlocks a different response: From queue to craft.

The Queue Era

For decades, the bottleneck in software development was human capacity. Can we find enough engineers? Can we get the backlog done? Can we ship before the quarter ends? Product and engineering organized around queue management: prioritizing, estimating, sprinting, shipping. The work that mattered was keeping the pipeline full and the pipeline moving.

That made sense when the scarce resource was implementation. When agents can generate most of the code, prototypes, and documentation, the queue empties faster than we know what to put in it. The bottleneck shifts from “can we build it?” to “do we want it? is it right?”

The Craft Era

Craft is the work that only humans can do. Strategy: deciding what to build and why. Judgment: evaluating agent output, knowing when it’s good enough and when it isn’t. Coherence: ensuring what we ship fits together and serves the user. Learning: understanding what worked, what didn’t, and what to try next.

When agents handle execution, the premium shifts from throughput to craft. Less “how do we get this done?” and more “what should we be doing?” The teams that embrace that shift don’t just survive the transition—they get to play a better game.

Why the Narrative Matters

People adopt what they believe in. If the story is “AI is coming for your job,” you get resistance and hedging. If the story is “AI is taking the queue off your plate so you can focus on craft,” you get curiosity and engagement.

That doesn’t mean the transition is easy. Roles will change. Some skills will matter less; others will matter more. But the narrative sets the default reaction. Queue-to-craft gives people a positive frame for a real shift—one that aligns with what many already want: less administrative work, more meaningful work.

Building the Narrative

Leaders and change agents need to say it out loud, often, and with specificity. “We’re not replacing you. We’re shifting what we optimize for. Your job is less about moving tickets and more about shaping what gets built.” Tie it to concrete examples: a developer who now spends time on architecture decisions instead of boilerplate; a PM who now focuses on user research instead of story refinement.

Awareness in the agent era isn’t just understanding that change is coming. It’s understanding that the change can be for people, not against them—if we tell the right story.