Everyone Has a Feeling. Almost Nobody Has a Number.
The AI readiness assessment question most professionals avoid is the simplest one: where exactly do I stand? Over the past two weeks, more than 39,000 people engaged with a single data point about AI and jobs.
Software engineer job postings, the ones that were supposed to disappear because of AI, surged in 2026 after two years of decline.
The comments split almost perfectly in half.
Half the people said: that is exactly what I am seeing. The professionals who prepared are not being replaced. They are being promoted.
The other half said: the destruction is still coming. Give it more time.
Here is what struck me about that conversation.
Almost everyone had a feeling about where they personally stood.
Almost nobody had a number.
The Problem With Feelings
When I ask professionals how prepared they are for AI disruption, I get answers that sound like this:
“I think I’m pretty adaptable.”
“I’ve been using ChatGPT for a while now.”
“I’m not as worried as some people I work with.”
These are feelings. They are not measurements.
And in my 27 years of working inside 34 Fortune 50 companies, I have never seen a professional accurately self-assess their own vulnerability to disruption.
The ones who are most at risk consistently believe they are more prepared than they are.
The ones who are genuinely prepared consistently underestimate how much their preparation matters.
Feelings are not a defense strategy. They are a comfort strategy.
The professionals who are thriving right now, the ones commanding premium compensation, expanding their roles, and building careers that AI cannot replicate, share one thing in common.
They stopped relying on feelings and started measuring.
What the Research Shows About AI Readiness
The MIT research we covered earlier this year found something that most people missed in the headline.
AI made the top scientists 44% more productive.
And did almost nothing for the lower performers.
Every scientist in the study had access to the same tools. The gap was not access. The gap was preparation, the depth of thinking, the strength of ideas, and the judgment that each professional brought to the tool.
The tool amplified what was already there.
Which means the most important question is not “do you have access to AI?”
It is “what does AI have to amplify when it gets to you?”
That is the question the Kryptonite Scorecard™ was built to answer.
The Five Ingredients AI Cannot Replicate
After 27 years consulting across 34 Fortune 50 companies, I identified five capabilities that consistently separate the professionals who thrive through disruption from the ones who are overtaken by it.
I call them the 5-Ingredient Kryptonite Defense™.
Not because they make you invincible. Because they make you irreplaceable.
IDEAS. The capacity to generate, test, and scale new thinking before disruption demands it. Not creativity for its own sake, the disciplined ability to produce original insight that others miss.
SPEED. The capacity to decide, act, and execute faster than the forces working against you. Not urgency, the organizational and personal architecture that converts decisions into outcomes without friction slowing everything down.
TALENT. The capacity to build and protect human capability that AI cannot easily replicate. Not just skills, the thinking, judgment, and relational depth that makes a professional genuinely difficult to replace.
DISTINCTION. The capacity to deliver work, presence, and experiences that are recognizably exceptional. Not different for its own sake, so clearly built around a standard that your competition cannot follow without becoming you.
LEADERSHIP AT ALL LEVELS. The capacity to activate leadership thinking and behavior throughout an organization, not just at the top. The professionals who are thriving are not waiting for someone above them to lead the AI response. They are leading it from wherever they sit.
These five ingredients are not a philosophy. They are a measurement framework.
This AI readiness assessment measures exactly where you stand.
Your AI Readiness Assessment Results: What the Scorecard Shows You
The Kryptonite Scorecard™ is a 30-behavior diagnostic. This AI readiness assessment measures exactly where you stand.
It takes approximately fifteen minutes.
When you finish, you receive a personalized report that shows you three things:
First, your overall score, a single number that reflects your current readiness across all five ingredients combined.
Second, your ingredient breakdown, exactly where your strengths live and exactly where your gaps are. Most people discover they are stronger in one or two ingredients and significantly more vulnerable in others. That breakdown is more useful than the overall score, because it tells you specifically what to work on first.
Third, a personalized action plan, specific, practical steps for closing the gaps in your most vulnerable ingredients. Not general advice about “embracing AI.” Specific behaviors, starting this week.
The leaders I work with who have taken the Scorecard describe the same experience.
They came in with a feeling.
They left with a number.
And the number told them something the feeling had been hiding.
The Leadership Version
The Scorecard is available at three levels.
The Individual version measures your personal readiness across the five ingredients. It is designed for professionals who want to know where they stand and what to do about it.
The Manager version measures both your personal readiness and your capacity to develop these capabilities in the people you lead. If your team is not building the five ingredients, the threat does not stop at your door.
The Org Leader version measures the full organizational picture, including your culture, your systems, and your leadership architecture across all levels. It is designed for executives who are responsible for the readiness of an entire organization, not just their own career.
We have written about the D-minus grade that tech leaders are giving themselves on AI communication. The Org Leader Scorecard is the antidote to that grade — a specific measurement of where your organization’s leadership is prepared and where it is not.
Standing Still Is a Score
Here is the thing about not taking the Scorecard.
It does not mean you have no score.
It means you have a score you have chosen not to look at.
Standing still is not a neutral position in the age of AI disruption.
It is a decision. And it has consequences.
The professionals who are most at risk right now are not the ones who tried to prepare and fell short. They are the ones who decided they had a good enough feeling about where they stood, and never converted that feeling into a measurement.
The Kryptonite Scorecard does not tell you whether AI is a threat.
You already know the answer to that.
It tells you specifically where you are prepared for it.
And specifically where you are not.
Those are two different pieces of information. Both of them matter.
The ones who close those gaps first are the ones who will not fear what is coming.
Those prepared need not fear the forces at work.
Find Out Where You Stand
Take the Kryptonite Scorecard™ at realmikeevans.com/scorecard.
Thirty behaviors. Fifteen minutes. Your number.
Individual: $29 | Manager: $49 | Org Leader: $199
Distinct or Extinct: Future-Proofing People and Organizations in the Age of AI is the complete framework behind the Scorecard. Available now on Amazon.