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Target Condition: Adaptation Is the New AI Advantage

“The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.”

A LinkedIn comment from a sharp HR acquaintance who helped me through the hiring process at my new company stopped me mid-scroll because it aligned perfectly with a theme running through this month’s issue of I-Connect007 Magazine. She wrote: “AI suddenly knows more than all of us, instantly. It can explain things, but it can’t do them. It isn’t unique, and you can’t automate presence. Knowledge may no longer be power; adaptation is.”

That thought has surfaced repeatedly in recent conversations, especially those surrounding artificial intelligence and its expanding role in printed circuit board design.

There is no shortage of excitement—or anxiety. We are seeing legitimate breakthroughs, including autonomous layout initiatives like Quilter’s Project Speedrun, a physics-driven AI approach that has already demonstrated the ability to design a fairly complex PCB. It leads one to ask: Will AI take my job?

The answer has less to do with technology than perspective. Age, culture, and experience shape how that question lands. For some, it reflects genuine uncertainty. For others, it feels overstated. What differs is not awareness of AI, but how its role is interpreted as either a threat, a tool, or simply the next evolution of the workflow.

AI has now designed a complex PCB. So, personally, how does that make you feel as a PCB designer?

‘I Just Earned My PCB Designer Certification. Am I Already Obsolete?’
Engineering communication has long been grounded in logic. Propositional logic—true or false, yes or no—remains the foundation for problem-solving, decision-making, and knowledge representation. Much of today’s AI still operates within this framework.

Yet even as AI advances beyond propositional reasoning, there are forms of intelligence it cannot replicate. This is where human value, specifically the training, experience, and judgment of a PCB designer, remains. Meaningful outputs from AI still require knowledgeable practitioners to guide the process, validate results, and translate designs into products that can reliably scale to production.

Procedural Intelligence Comes First
This is the ability to know how to begin. A PCB layout does not start with routing, but rather with gathering, reconciling, and prioritizing information from many stakeholders. Requirements are incomplete, constraints conflict, and decisions must be made before the first trace is placed. Designers synthesize this information dynamically, often under pressure. That judgment remains human.

Perspective Intelligence Follows
Experienced designers can see multiple paths forward. They understand nuance and context. They weigh electrical performance against manufacturability, testability, cost, schedule, and risk. They make tradeoffs informed not only by rules, but by experience.

Participatory Intelligence Completes the Picture
Designers answer the phone. They respond in real time. They explain, adjust, negotiate, and recalibrate as projects evolve. This intelligence exists in relationships, not databases. These capabilities are not easily automated.

Communication Is the Key to Adaptation
One of the things I enjoy most about joining a new company is meeting new people. Those first few days of learning who does what, how they communicate, and what they care about are invaluable to me. I enjoy discovering shared connections, mutual interests, and the written and unwritten rules of how work actually gets done when there is transparency and open communication.

Some of us have also experienced the opposite: workplaces or workflows where communication is strained or ineffective. Challenging engineering and manufacturing ecosystems span cultures, disciplines, and motivations. Even small communication misalignments can lead to lost time, wasted money, or worse. Adaptation begins with communication.

Over time, I’ve come to believe that effective PCB design collaboration requires recognizing four core personality types, both in ourselves and in others:

• Social personalities build relationships and open doors. They create momentum, but progress stalls if the conversation never turns into action.
• Analytical personalities bring rigor and depth, yet projects can suffer when communication becomes siloed or overly reserved.
• Structural personalities are methodical and detail-oriented. They thrive on predictability and execute well when communication is clear and orderly.
• Conceptual personalities are goal-driven risk-takers who inspire commitment. Alongside them are the cheerleaders who support, encourage, and ensure follow-through.

None of these personality types is sufficient on its own. Successful PCB projects depend on knowing when to listen, when to explain, and when to adapt your message to the audience in front of you.

AI can process language and, apparently, now complete a PCB layout. But will future AI models render fundamental PCB design skills and an aptitude for navigating people and personality types obsolete for engineers?[PG1] 

So, How Does That Make You Feel?
I don’t change jobs often. I still believe employment is a two-way investment where I apply what I know while continuing to learn, and one that, over time, creates mutual value and trust.

We have entered an era where knowledge alone is no longer a differentiator. AI can retrieve it instantly, articulate it fluently, and distribute it endlessly. But how will it earn our trust?

For younger designers who will appear to be jumping ahead without a foundation of deep, well-founded experience, this moment brings excitement but may be compared to running with scissors. For seasoned professionals nearing retirement, it brings astonishment and maybe a little mistrust—a rare industry-wide inflection point and something akin to the shift from light tables and taped-up artwork to CAD and CAM decades ago.

What AI cannot replicate is presence: the human ability to adapt in real time, sense nuance, and make decisions when the rules are unclear, lost, or forgotten. As automation accelerates, uniqueness no longer comes from what we know but from how we may need to respond socially, analytically, structurally, and conceptually.

I love this proverb: “The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.”

Look around. Much of what you see today will change, and it will change quickly. The question is not whether AI will advance, but whether we who bring humanity to it will adapt alongside it.

My guess is that successful adaptation will look less like mastering another tool or workflow, and more like continuing to add value, or mastering ourselves through:

• Proactive learning: Problem-solving, trade shows, supplier visits, understanding stakeholder needs, and learning to leverage awesome AI technology to cut PCB layout timelines
• Emotional management: Empathy, balance, and transitioning from fluid intelligence to crystallized intelligence, as described by Raymond Cattell and highlighted in From Strength to Strength, by Arthur C. Brooks
• Resilience: Bouncing back, managing stress, staying flexible, and strategic

Knowledge may no longer be power, but adaptation is.

This column originally appeared in the January 2026 issue of I-Connect007 Magazine.