Have you ever felt like you’ve stepped away from your desk for a moment, only to return to a world that has fundamentally changed? Maybe you took a week-long vacation, blissfully disconnected, and came back to find a new AI model that has completely redefined the possibilities in your field. That feeling of dizzying, relentless progress is becoming the new normal.
The pace is staggering. A week of advancement in AI can feel like a century of progress in other fields. What used to be a steady march of innovation has become a full-blown sprint, and many of us are struggling to keep up.
This phenomenon needs a name. Let’s call it Technology Inflation.
Defining Technology Inflation
In economics, inflation is when your money buys less than it used to. Technology Inflation is when your knowledge and skills buy you less relevance and earning power than they used to.
It’s the exponential devaluation of your existing knowledge base in the face of rapid technological advancement.
Imagine you’re earning a 1906 salary but trying to pay for a 2026 lifestyle. That’s the core of Technology Inflation. The value of what you mastered last year—or even last month—depreciates at a terrifying rate. The skills that once guaranteed a stable, successful career are becoming obsolete, not in a decade, but in a matter of months. If you’re not actively learning, you are functionally falling behind. Your professional “purchasing power” is plummeting.
The New Currency: From Specific Skills to General Agency
For decades, the hiring mantra was clear: find people with a specific set of skills to perform a specific set of tasks. You needed a graphic designer who knew Photoshop, a marketer who had mastered SEO, or a developer fluent in a particular coding language.
Technology Inflation is turning that model on its head.
Why hire someone for a skill that an AI can perform in seconds? The value is no longer in the practiced, repeatable skill. Instead, employers are desperately searching for a more durable, more valuable trait: agency.
Agency is the innate ability to get things done. It’s the resourcefulness to tackle a problem you’ve never seen before by leveraging the newest tools at your disposal. An employee with agency might not know the “right” way to do something, but they know how to find a way—by prompting an AI, deploying a new SaaS tool, or synthesizing information from three new platforms that were released last week.
This is why Jim Collins’ famous principle from Good to Great is more relevant than ever: get the right people on the bus. Collins argued that it’s more important to have a bus full of highly capable, adaptable people than it is to know the exact direction the bus is headed. In today’s landscape, the direction of the bus might change quarterly. The market shifts, a new technology emerges, and the entire roadmap is redrawn. A team built on rigid, specific skills will stall. A team built on agency will find the new route and accelerate.
For companies, this means you need to hire for agility. For employees, it means you need to become the person who can drive the bus, no matter the terrain.
Kaizen: Your Hedge Against Technology Inflation
So, how do we fight this? How do we protect our careers and our companies from having their value inflated away? The answer lies in a classic Japanese philosophy: Kaizen.
Kaizen translates to “continuous improvement.” Originally applied to manufacturing processes at Toyota, its principles are now the single most important survival strategy for the modern professional and organization.
Continuous education is no longer a nice-to-have or something you do once a year for a certification. It must become a daily, integrated practice. Kaizen is not about massive, occasional overhauls; it’s about small, consistent, incremental improvements. It’s the operating system for a resilient career.
Practical Strategies to Stay Relevant
Fighting Technology Inflation requires a conscious, strategic effort.
For Individuals:
- Embrace the 5-Hour Rule: Dedicate at least five hours a week (or one hour a day) to deliberate learning. This could be reading, taking an online course, or simply experimenting with new tools.
- Focus on Meta-Skills: Prioritize learning how to learn. Cultivate critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability. These are the skills that help you leverage technology, regardless of what the tech is.
- Get Your Hands Dirty: Don’t just read about new AI. Use it. Sign up for free trials. Build a small, personal project with it. Practical application solidifies knowledge far better than passive consumption.
- Build a Learning Network: Surround yourself with curious people. Share what you’re learning and learn from what others are discovering.
For Companies:
- Hire for Agency: Revamp your interview process. Move beyond the checklist of skills and create scenarios that test for problem-solving, curiosity, and resourcefulness. Ask candidates: “Here’s a problem we’re facing. You can use any tool on the internet. How would you start?”
- Champion a Learning Culture: Don’t just offer a training budget; build a culture where learning is a core business activity. Reward experimentation, even if it fails. Celebrate employees who learn and share new skills.
- Provide the Tools and Time: Give your team access to learning platforms, industry publications, and new software. Crucially, give them the time to use them without feeling like they’re falling behind on their primary tasks.
Technology Inflation is a powerful, disruptive force. You can either let it devalue your relevance until you become a relic, or you can embrace it as the ultimate catalyst for growth. By cultivating agency and committing to the philosophy of Kaizen, you can transform this challenge into your greatest competitive advantage. The future belongs not to those who know the most today, but to those who can learn the fastest tomorrow.
