The CEO who vowed to ‘fire anyone who doesn’t use AI’ admits that the technology can’t replace her executive assistant as the role evolves

With their numbers already in decline, secretaries and administrative assistants face another growing threat: artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Claude that can accomplish aspects of their workload with a tap.

Employment projection data offers a grim outlook for the women-dominated profession that may be particularly vulnerable to AI-induced job displacement compared to the broader workforce. But some admins are embracing the technology — and even using it as a tool to get ahead.

Deanna Danger, 43, has worked in an administrative role since 2003. She says adapting and staying ahead of the curve is a key part of her constantly-changing role, and AI is no exception.

“All you do is have to evolve,” she says.

Danger started using AI professionally in 2022, learning through experimentation and collaboration with fellow admins. Today, she no longer takes notes during meetings — she’s set up Copilot and ChatGPT to do it for her. That has freed her to “actually participate in the meetings, and not just worry about making sure I typed everything out that was said,” says Danger, executive assistant to the chief information officer at Vanderbilt University. “Honestly, what used to take me hours I’m now done with in under five minutes.”

How — and to what extent — AI might reshape her profession remains to be seen, but jobs for administrative assistants and secretaries have been dwindling for decades. In 2004, about 3.5 million people worked in the role — nearly 97% of them women, according to Current Population Surveydata. Twenty years later, that number slid to 2.1 million — despite overall workforce growth during the same period. And except for medical secretaries and administrative assistants — a category projected to grow 4% by 2034 thanks to growth of the healthcare industry — economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict a continued........

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