This Friday 24 February 2017, LSE Careers is hosting a breakfast networking event on data, information and technology. It’s a chance for students and recent graduates to meet representatives working in these areas, who will share their insight and opportunities.

Here LSE alum Lauren Maffeo shares her thoughts and guidance on the industry sector. Lauren works for GetApp – a Garner Digital Markets company – and covers trends in the project management, finance, and accounting software industries. She previously covered tech trends for The Guardian and The Next Web. She also currently serves as Co-Chair of Alumni and Friends of The London School of Economics’ Washington DC chapter, and on the LSE’s Alumni Association Communications Subcommittee.

What is ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’? Other than a Steven Spielberg movie from the early noughties, it’s quickly creeping into the careers space.

In fact, it’s safe to say that the robots are not coming – they’re already here.

IT Research Firm Gartner predicts that by 2020, more than three million global workers will report to ‘robobosses’. As if that’s not alarming enough, Gartner also predicts that 50 per cent of the fastest-growing companies will have fewer employees than smart machines by 2020.

But before you fear that you’ll have no job to join – or your future boss will be a literal robot – don’t despair. This ‘rise of the robots’ will be driven by humans who deploy AI technologies across organisations using the right set of software tools and management processes.

This is the heart of a career in technology strategy. And no group is more equipped to fill it than Millennials.

I know this might sound odd at first – especially in the midst of your LSE studies. How does constantly thinking about Foucault during revisions prepare oneself for a role deploying robots? The secret lies in that career’s second word: strategy.

Studying theorists like Foucault can’t be done in a vacuum (or, in his case, a Panopticon). The goal is to read his work in full; distill each paper down to its essence; and apply it in broader, more specific contexts. In other words, you need to start by asking ‘Why?’ and end by applying the answer to solve a real problem.

Working in tech strategy involves the same process. And Millennials are the first group of ‘digital natives’ who came of age alongside emerging technologies. That comfort level is a must-have during strategic planning for the problems that trends like AI will bring.

As AI technologies become more mainstream, they will bring new challenges as well. Unless these technologies are thoughtfully deployed, we all risk giving into information burnout. This is where Millennials can possibly ‘save the day’.

Gartner predicts that the rise of AI devices will keep blurring the line between work and home, creating three key employee problems:

• demand for flexibility
• need to achieve more in less time
• awareness and use of differing ecosystems

Luckily, Millennials are poised to change the workforce as they become managers. They:

• already spend more time working on personally-owned devices than prior generations
• will save 30 minutes of work each day through strategic use of AI tools by 2020
• don’t care as much about ecosystems – they’ll advocate for tech tools that know how to engage humans, not the other way around

Working in tech strategy is an admittedly niche choice; unlike law or medicine, there is no clear-cut path to success. What is clear-cut is the need for leaders who see the big picture and know how to apply it in the real world.

‘In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled’ The Guardian’s George Monbiot says. Millennials who want to apply these skills to a tech strategy career might be forced to take the road less travelled – but charting our own course is already something we tend to excel at.