We Just Didn’t Call It That
For 20+ years, I have helped people use technology they did not understand. The tools changed. The job did not.
“AI Enablement” is a new term. The work behind it is not new to me. It is the same work I have been doing since I started in IT support, translating technology into something a person can actually use.
Help desk and desktop support roles get outsourced first and remembered last, but they may be the most important seat in any IT department. We are often the first ones to see a new tool land in a company. We troubleshoot it, document the workarounds, and teach the people who have to use it, whether they asked for it or not.
That last part, the teaching, is the piece that tends to get overlooked.
Where the Teaching Started
I wanted to be a teacher before I wanted to be in IT. As a kid, I lined up my dolls and taught them math and reading. In college at Western Oregon University, I was headed into the education program until Common Core changed how that program worked. I switched to my second favorite subject, computer science, with a plan to teach elementary science. I graduated in the university’s first class to build its Java core curriculum around Java, just as it was becoming one of the most widely used programming languages.
I never became a classroom teacher. I became something close to it anyway.
Having a computer science background changes how I troubleshoot. I understand the error message instead of just recognizing that one exists. That understanding lets me work with someone at any skill level, have them describe the problem in their own words, repeat it back so we are both looking at the same issue, and then walk them through a fix without making them feel behind.
That is the actual skill. Not the ticket count. Not the tool name. The ability to sit with someone’s confusion and turn it into a next step they can take on their own.
What AI Enablement Actually Means
AI enablement, in plain terms, is the strategic work of getting technology, data, and people ready to use AI safely and well across a business. It is not about installing a tool and hoping it sticks. It is about building the systems and the training that let AI take on routine work while people keep doing the parts that need judgment.
PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer found that 77 percent of employers plan to reskill their workforce to work alongside AI. Only 13 percent of workers report having received any AI training so far. That gap is not a technology problem. It is a training problem, and training is the part of this work I have spent two decades doing.
I did not pivot into AI enablement. I have been doing it under a different job title the whole time.