AI won’t take your job overnight, but it will change it, local strategist says

Dwayne Dixon has spent more than 40 years at the exact moment new technology arrives in the workplace, from early office technology at Xerox to the World Wide Web at IBM, cloud computing at Dun and Bradstreet, and now AI at Microsoft.

Dixon, an ethical AI strategist, executive advisor and member of the National Black MBA Association’s AI Advisory Council, is turning that vantage point toward a question he hears constantly from Black professionals and entrepreneurs: Is AI a threat to job security, or a tool for getting ahead? His answer is neither simple optimism nor alarm.

“AI is both an opportunity and a threat,” Dixon said. “It can give one professional or small business capabilities that previously required a much larger staff. But Black workers may not be adequately represented in the leadership structures deciding how these technologies are deployed.”

The immediate danger, Dixon said, is not that jobs disappear overnight, but that some workers gain productivity, visibility and influence while others get left behind doing the routine work AI is best at replacing.

“AI generally affects tasks before it eliminates occupations,” Dixon said. “Judgment, trust, context, relationships and accountability become more valuable.”

Five steps, not panic

Dixon rejects the idea that Black professionals are already losing ground to AI. He pointed to a Jobs for the Future survey that found 83% of Black respondents were familiar with AI and 53% were using AI tools daily or weekly.

“We have to be very careful when we talk about whether Black workers are being left behind,” Dixon said. “That’s a deficit narrative, and all the available evidence does not support it. Black workers are already experimenting.”

Instead, Dixon laid out five steps he tells professionals to follow: learn it, apply it, verify it, document it and help govern it, from understanding its limits to tracking the value it creates and getting involved in workplace policy around its use.

“The people who understand how AI works will have more influence over how it’s redesigned,” Dixon said. “The outcome will not be determined by the technology alone. It will be determined by leadership choices. Who receives training? Whose work is automated? Who shares in the productivity gains, and who helps establish the rules?”

Verifying AI’s answers matters more than people realize, Dixon said, because the technology delivers wrong information with the same confidence as correct information.

“AI will give you the wrong answer with confidence,” Dixon said. “You have to push back on that, challenge it, and verify the information it gives you.”

A capacity multiplier for entrepreneurs

For Black entrepreneurs, Dixon said AI functions less as a specific product and more as a way of thinking, useful for market research, proposals and administrative work. But it cannot replace what makes a business distinct.

“Generic AI content will not differentiate a business,” Dixon said. “The competitive advantage comes from combining the technology with expertise, lived experience, customer knowledge and trusted relationships. Let AI produce the first draft. Let your expertise produce the final judgment.”

Entrepreneurs also need to protect confidential information, verify legal claims and preserve their authentic voice, Dixon said. He was cautious about naming favorite tools, noting that ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini are all strong options today, though the landscape shifts too fast for any single recommendation to last.

“Tools change at the speed of a press release,” Dixon said. “It’s less about specific tools and more about a mindset.”

Governance is the missing piece

Asked about gaps in AI policy, Dixon said the bigger problem is not missing regulation but missing internal governance at companies themselves.

“It’s the wild, wild west out here,” Dixon said. “What I am seeing is that organizations do not have their AI governance in place.”

No company would install a major financial system without governance to oversee it, he said, yet many deploy AI without that same oversight at the board level.

Dixon’s forthcoming book, “Bridging the Code: Ethical Leadership and Governance for the Age of AI,” argues AI is a leadership and governance issue, not just a technical one.

“Leaders cannot delegate moral or business responsibility to a machine,” Dixon said.

Faith and a generational shift

Dixon, an ordained minister pursuing a doctorate in ministry at Howard Divinity School on the intersection of faith and AI, sees the same pattern playing out in spiritual life. He pointed to Barna Group research showing a quarter of Generation Z respondents trust spiritual advice from AI as much as advice from a pastor, compared with 16% of Generation Xers.

“Just because AI said it, that doesn’t mean it’s right,” Dixon said. “Just because AI brought it to you with a confident tone, that doesn’t mean it’s something to be obeyed.”

What’s next

Dixon will host an executive fireside conversation and book launch event on Sept. 10 at the Minneapolis Club, from 6 to 8 p.m., focused on how leaders can pursue innovation without surrendering judgment, accountability or humanity. You can RSVP at https://BridgingTheCode.eventbrite.com.

For Dixon, the larger story is one Black communities have lived before.

“Black communities have repeatedly learned how to innovate under constraints, how to build institutions and create opportunities where systems did not initially make room for us,” Dixon said. “That history gives us hope, but it also teaches that progress is not automatic. Black professionals should approach AI with urgency, but not fear, with curiosity, discipline and the determination to help shape the rules.”

Dwayne Dixon is the executive advisor of the National Black MBA Association’s AI Advisory Council. For more, visit www.dwaynedixon.com and www.ethicalaibook.com.

If you found this article interesting, join us at our upcoming Sister Spokesman event on AI at the Northpoint Conference Center, Saturday, Sept. 5. For more information, visit www.spokesman-recorder.com/sister-spokesman/. 

Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.