The most prized human skill

What will survive the AI revolution?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
– Albert Einstein

Your board asks what your AI plan is. You have an answer for the tools. You don’t yet have one for what your people are supposed to do differently because of them.

That gap is where the real work is.

Al Dea, who runs The Edge of Work(opens in new tab) podcast, has been asking talent leaders what they’re struggling with most this year. The answers keep circling the same theme: As AI takes over more of the doing, what skills become more valuable for humans — and how do you build those skills when the roles keep shifting under them?

In a world overflowing with answers, what’s becoming the most valuable human skill? It’s the ability to pose the right questions, as a result of human experience, judgment, discernment, and critical thinking.

Here’s why: AI doesn’t know your organization’s politics, its history, or why a decision matters the way it does. It doesn’t have the read on a tense stakeholder meeting, the call on which risk is worth taking. And it doesn’t carry the accountability when a call goes wrong.

Critical thinking both before and after we encounter AI is what gives that tool its strategic value, and that’s something only humans can do.

While AI can take the processing off your plate — the drafting, the first pass, the analysis — it can’t tell you what’s worth taking on, what matters in a deluge of information, or how to discern good information from bad. That’s still you.

Yes, AI is dominating conversations in talent development right now. Yet in the rush to adopt AI tools, is development for the human side of AI being neglected just when it’s needed most?

One question for the week: Where on your team is AI doing the processing — and where has it quietly started doing the thinking, too?

One great thing for 08.25.26 – Making learning fun and memorable(opens in new tab) – An escape room and a fast-paced game earn back-to-back Brandon Hall Group Gold awards in Learning and Development.