Why AI agents will reshape work, and the 5 human skills that matter most

The organisations seeing lasting impact with AI aren’t just deploying the technology – they’re building the human capabilities that create new value.

The conversation in boardrooms has shifted from “How do we use AI?” to “What happens when AI doesn’t need us to manage it?”

We’re seeing early examples of AI completing multi-step work independently – coordinating research across platforms, managing project timelines, and making resource allocation decisions. Amazon is reshaping its workforce around this shift, and Meta is investing $10 billion in AI.

The organisations getting ahead are focusing on three areas. First, they’re mapping which workflows depend on human coordination versus human insight. Second, they’re building the data infrastructure that autonomous AI will need – clean, accessible, properly governed information systems. Third, they’re having honest conversations about role evolution, not just role replacement.

The leadership challenge isn’t technical – it’s organisational. How do you manage teams that include autonomous agents? How do you maintain accountability and governance when decisions happen without human oversight? How do you keep human judgement sharp when routine tasks disappear?

The key question forward-thinking leaders are wrestling with is which roles in their organisation depend on irreplaceable human insight versus roles that purely co-ordinate and AI will soon manage.

The human advantage in AI

The debate about AI replacing jobs misses the more important question: how do we amplify human capabilities to create new value? There’s no doubt AI will automate significant portions of knowledge work, but the opportunity that is often overlooked is developing human qualities that become even more critical in an AI world.

We’ve identified five:

1. Curiosity to explore AI’s emerging capabilities and discover applications others haven’t considered.
2. Critical thinking to assess AI outputs, spot errors, and recognise when AI’s assumptions are wrong.
3. Optimism to see AI as expanding possibilities rather than limiting them.
4. Persistence to push through AI’s inevitable limitations and find applications that create real value.
5. Agility to keep learning as AI capabilities evolve rapidly and reshape how we approach work.

The organisations getting ahead with AI aren’t just focusing on technical training. They recognise that as AI handles more routine cognitive work, these human qualities become more valuable, not less. The teams seeing real business impact are the ones where people have developed both the technical competence to implement AI solutions and the human qualities to think differently about what’s possible.

The question for leaders: are you developing your people’s uniquely human capabilities as deliberately as you’re building their AI skills?