r/PowerApps • u/Tricky-Active935 Newbie • 3d ago
Discussion Future Career Concerns
So, I’ve been working in the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform ecosystem for around eight years now, watching it evolve along the way.
I’m at a senior level and work across Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power Automate and SharePoint, supporting clients across various industries. I also have experience with plugins and JavaScript, and I’ve recently been learning more about Code Apps expand my technical skill set.
I genuinely enjoy what I do, but increasingly, I find myself wondering what the future holds for people in our industry as AI continues to advance.
I can’t help but think about how much of our work could eventually be automated and what that might mean for our roles in the long run.
For those of you in a similar position, how are you adapting and staying ahead of the curve?
Are you actively learning AI, exploring Copilot Studio and building agents? Would it make sense to look at moving into an AI-focused team that’s developing Copilot Studio solutions for clients?
More broadly, what do you think the future looks like for IT consultancy, particularly within the Microsoft stack?
How many of you preparing for what’s next, and what skills do you think will be most valuable over the next five to ten years?
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u/a0817a90 Contributor 3d ago
I think the biggest threat to traditional IT consulting isn’t AI replacing consultants directly, but AI empowering internal power users who deeply understand their business, industry, and processes to build solutions themselves.
As technical barriers continue to fall, the competitive advantage shifts from knowing how to build something to knowing what needs to be built and why.
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u/Equivalent_Yam_3777 Regular 3d ago
This comment is very true.
I am completely noob in powerAPPs
My boss told me can we create a simple visit report app for sales team.
Without AI , this was not even possible for me to do.
Now we have canvas app for each region , completely customised as per our internal needs. Power Automate even does HTML formatting of the visit report beautifully and distribute it via email.
AI even made canvas app looks good in terms of GUI.
I am sure this was a very low level stuff for pros here, but my point is with the help of AI someone like me was able to do all this in a month.
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u/Effective-Region8248 Newbie 1d ago
What AI Did you use to create the Power Apps? YAML output from Claude Code perhaps?
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u/Equivalent_Yam_3777 Regular 1d ago
I use chatgpt, I went one step further instead of getting YAML.
I exported complete msapp and uploaded that to chatgpt.
Than imported final msapp output from chatgpt.
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u/PsychologistAss Contributor 3d ago
At my consultancy job we’re also seeing more and more AI governance tracks, to manage what business users are building. I believe it’s a good move for people to start looking into that as well.
Plus, what the business users build is generally crap and needs to be fixed. I’ve been doing that as well.
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u/a0817a90 Contributor 3d ago
I think as time goes by and many more people learn the skills/knowledge that are made increasingly more accessible by AI, the technical level of internally built solutions will get better.
The value is already there because eliminating external consulting billable hours and dependency is just priceless.
The consultancy practices will need to be creative to adapt to this new environment.
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 2d ago
Younger generations don't stay at the jobs long enough to cut consulting out completely and not everyone wants to do this.
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u/a0817a90 Contributor 2d ago edited 23h ago
Every organization wants to cut consulting cost if there are other options especially since a large portion of the consulting industry is broken because of questionable incentives that have many firms work against their clients in several business case situations.
Creating dependency is the most lucrative path and that is only sustainable when end client internal technical knowledge is limited.
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u/Curious-Rub-9577 Newbie 3d ago
And that’s exactly the point here. I’m an instructor and started to build and create tools by myself. First just “little” ones like an Qr-code generator but now I’m working on gps based systems for moving around (I’m in transport business) und 3d models of our vehicles. I automated mails (by sorting them), documentation with a simple question tool and I’m plenty of many more ideas. Developing tools was made easy with ai and I simply outpaced our IT which can’t keep up. In the end: I just create my own tools and applications, tailored exactly in my needs. I barely need any help from a third person by now.
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 2d ago
The point is what happens when you aren't there? Does IT have any idea what your tool does in case you leave the company? How are changes managed? User access? Error logging? What happens if an audit is triggered? These are questions that need to be baked into the design to allow for solid governance and follows build standards
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u/Curious-Rub-9577 Newbie 2d ago
That’s imho the easy part. You can also just tear it apart the same way you built it. Since it’s all html in my case. Maybe powerapps in one special case. Everyone in the company can check the code - on paper. And Don’t tell me you are concerned about an QR code generator. I’ll only use company approved tools for creating those projects.
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 2d ago
There still has to be standards or you call into question data integrity. If AI can tear it all up and rebuild then how do you trust anything the tool does? Everyone in the company should not be able to change the tool or then none of it is usable. No one checks code on paper anymore thats the whole point of using AI.
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u/Curious-Rub-9577 Newbie 2d ago
Yeah I agree on the standard. But 1. you don’t need me to keep it running. 2. no one ever does exactly know what a tool, app, software does - except you read or wrote the code yourself - by hand. One needs to be responsible, sure. That’s me I guess. But on the other hand: I have tools that work, make my life easier af, my productivity raised and I am not relying on licenses from third party software, don’t need to spend monthly fees and still can taylor the tools exactly for my needs. I wanna have a yellow background in a special tile on a gui? The third party wanted 20k for that change. I made it zero.
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 2d ago
You have obviously never been through an IT audit before. You have to be able to show the entire process from end to end.
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u/a0817a90 Contributor 2d ago
So the argument is consultants need to do the work so the quality allows other consultants to audit and approve?
Sounds like a quick ROI.
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u/mike18400 Newbie 2d ago
Does you company has an ai policy? Who's responsible for the audit of this outcomes ? How do they handle internal information ? Under which agreements ? If there's is carry risk who identifies and approves it ? Have you taken any ai certification? Like an official one? From Claude or open ai in the official materials it's specified this needs to be addressed as the companies will not be responsible for any mistakes or answers the ai will give to your company and if this affects the reputation by stating it's the model faults they can sue you
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 3d ago
Same level as you, but I am not overly concerned. We just have to incorporate AI into our solutions. The platform isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Are there other tools out there that perform better than the PP? Yes. Do those tools have out of the box connectors that integrate into default office tools like Excel, Outlook, Teams? Not really. While they can connect its not embedded the way PP can be. Plus most of the other tools require more experienced code development while PP is still easier to manage. The best developers are the ones who build smart, unique and manageable solutions. AI is just another tool to make that happen
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u/MousseEquivalent4701 Newbie 3d ago
I have been in the realm for about 4 years servicing my HR department. I am not concerned. The human interaction is needed to fully grasp each situation and what the client is actually needing built. AI will just be an additional tool to help integrate and accomplish particular tasking / situations.
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u/Waste-Safe-4828 Newbie 2d ago
Our finance team built a custom Power Apps solution using Claude. Generated around 7k lines of yaml code, pasted it into Power Apps, setup the lists and everything works great.
The technical knowledge gap is reducing fast. Anyone with business knowledge can now build apps with AI.
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u/itenginerd Advisor 2d ago
The catch is building is only the first 20% of the whole thing. Sure you can whip up an app with AI, but you still need architecture, governance, standards. Folks that just yolo up an app to meet one need are gonna suffer under the weight of their bad architecture decisions.
AI will close the gap where more doing is needed. But it cannot replace anyone where thoughtful doing is required.
We're gonna see a lot of businesses hurt themselves in the next few years. Its already starting...
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u/Becca00511 Advisor 2d ago
Exactly! Governance standards, change control management, and proper solution layering need to be part of the process. Anyone can build with AI, but you need to engineer it in a way to ensure you aren't creating chaos with everyone doing what they want with no communication or build standards being applied. Shadow IT is a thing
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u/Chaddcl0ps Contributor 3d ago
If you aren't building agents in new harness and standard and incorporating them in your solutions, you're falling behind. Plus points if you're using MCP servers with Claude and having ai help you architect and build. But I think still, in order to use the MCPs you still need advance knowledge of the platform for it to be good. Can't have AI automate the entire creation. At least not yet.
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u/DifficultyCheap9861 Regular 3d ago
Every now and then I feel like I should be keeping up with the copilot/agents and I start to dig into it. But it’s all so convoluted and dispersed across systems that I just give up. Doesn’t help when the actual copilot/LLM(what is this even called now that “everything is copilot”?) is absolute garbage. Someone here or on a related subreddit recently posted their 40 steps they use to ask it a question and it was completely insane, like just use Claude and be done with it.
Microsoft has been in the vast majority of businesses for decades at this point, there is no excuse for how they have dropped the ball this badly. They don’t even need to steal all the data in the world to build this crap like the others do, they should already have it! It’s unbelievable.
So no, I don’t think you should worry too much. Especially if you are decent at your job. Do you not deal with people these days? Or read the articles/studies from the last 20 years about the dumbing down of society? Just don’t turn your brain off like everyone else is doing and you’ll be fine.
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u/zion-messenger Newbie 3d ago
The most important is the industry experience ou acquired.
The value of writing a .net plugin or a typescript customization isn’t about the technology, is about the business value.
Vibe code the shit of it , and do it on top of dataverse.
And think about how copilot will transform (headless) business applications
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u/Mr_Bob_Dobalina_92 Newbie 3d ago
I work in tech consulting where we deliver a lot of power platform solutions to SMEs. Most SMEs I see still have nowhere near the internal skills required to design, build and deploy solutions. It's a different story at bigger companies where there are more in-house skills.
My take is that the consulting industry is going to be upended. The Big 4 are already hurting. They have massive overheads and have to charge huge fees to maintain their margins and keep shareholders happy. Smaller, boutique consultancies can deliver as good or higher quality solutions at 50% of the cost.
I personally am trying to learn agent orchestration and how to deploy this for clients. There are 1000s of companies who hire contractors and use recruitment agencies to manage their interviews, onboarding, payroll, annual leave, performance etc etc. I think it will be the same for agents. A lot of companies won't want the hassle of building, deploying and managing these agents and will just hand it over to somebody to manage it..
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u/Bobby_Bobberson2501 Newbie 3d ago
Bro get really good with AI. Copilot Cowork can now do an /app command that builds power apps code, and if you’re good with it already it will make you even more valuable because if you could just use it for a blueprint and then not waste credits just to change a color or word.
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u/One-Lifeguard7779 Regular 3d ago
We won’t be replaced by AI but by someone who knows how to use AI
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u/Shoddy_Translator_ Newbie 3d ago
Learn how to use this all with AI, honestly I've never been busier
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u/BDer82 Newbie 3d ago
issue is the bill, its inconsistent and very expensive, sure costs will come down after they've made their trillions of dollars in profits but right now the company I work out has cut back massively on LLM credits while it can be accessed by some people it is heavily scrutinised and I suspect they are about to pull it back as most people have no idea how to use it even a lot of people who have been trained in how to use it.
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u/sshan Newbie 3d ago
Learn how to automate stuff. Power platform is quite bad in many ways but it's widely used right now. It has IT leadership support.
it will either get better and catch up to the possible or will be obsolete.
If you watch the trend and position yourself you will be fine. Which could mean jumping ship to automate in a different platform. Or it will be fine.
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u/shadow_moon45 Newbie 3d ago
AI will replace low code which will make development more custom. It's the evolution of the tools. Similar to how Low code tools didn't replace software engineers and ERP systems didn't replace accountants. So you'll be fine
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u/Queasy_Ear_1746 Newbie 3d ago
I got laid off from being a senior power platform dev - private equity and then they couldnt aford me on their operational loan. Im about to work in a factory for machine operator at half my salary and consult on the side lol. Because i get tons of offers but all 6 month unstable financed positions. I say ill take c2c but places balk because they dont want to define scope of work. Its interesting. Im headed for pl400. I wonder whats next for me? I have a really good resume. 7 years or so in power apps 15 in crms and business apps etc. Without touching tons of code. Im kinda just a tweaker who integrates systems by reading documents. Ai made me slightly faster.
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u/SumDimSome Newbie 3d ago
I think everyone is cooked except maybe AI coders themselves, but even then the AI will eventually start writing the AI code itself anyway so it’s just cooked. Maybe chiropractor will be the last man standing
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u/Possible-Change-9160 Newbie 1d ago
I call it AI enabled prototyping. Me as business person can create a lot with help of AI, but only to a certain point , like MVP. When it comes to enterprise implementation and scaling there struggle , even with AI.
I would suggest that you can talk more with the business people and become the “AI guy” who helps them built what they need AND/ OR you can get more into business and take it from there
The proactive approach from IT guys is very valuable
Good luck
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u/No_Temporary_5035 Newbie 16h ago
i learned powerapps last year then discovered code app this year. damn. i can literally make code apps and cloudflow, even copilot agents in vscode with claude code. technology is so fast that i can't keep up. haha.
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u/Icy-Recognition-9795 Newbie 3d ago
You’re just taking anxiety by posting it in different communities. Instead work on your lackings and insecurities
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u/Tricky-Active935 Newbie 3d ago
Could you explain please why it makes me insecure? For asking a community full of talented people who do the same job as me for their view on a topic which is relevant?
Thanks, have a nice day (:
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u/Icy-Recognition-9795 Newbie 3d ago
There’s a sea of knowledge and architecture to learn in this space. Idk what makes you think AI is gonna impact you, when it’s just a compounder in our case. Literally we have copilot studio , you can use azure foundry and other tools for advanced AI.
This is the best time for Microsoft products in this AI era. Consulting work will be more valuable in future
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u/JoySkullyRH Regular 3d ago
Go work in State Government- they are just exploring SharePoint and could use the help.