A Year That Shifted Faster Than Expected
I don’t know when in my career there’s ever been a mid-point in the year where it felt more necessary to pause and reflect. I entered 2025 not talking much, or thinking much, about AI. My goals and my team’s goals were established based on a model of our work that did not include AI except for experiments around the edges.
In less than 6 months, I’m fundamentally rethinking my own role. My thoughts on hiring and team development over the next several years are totally different. My vision for what we could do with Shore University which felt highly aspirational in January, now feels quaint.
Every week, I am adjusting to the next example, insight, and product my team is exploring using AI to better serve and support our portfolio’s talent development. I am looking at my own skills that I thought were critical to the future of Shore University, and recognizing that AI has many of those same skills. So, what does that mean? What do I do with that?
What AI Can Do and What It Can’t
I have to be honest, evaluate, and plan for myself and my team through two frames:
Tactical Growth: What skills does AI have that we need to leverage to replace or improve our own? This is where we must train and learn and keep up.
Strategic Growth: What can’t AI do that we can? This is where we must focus and double down on the human-to-human and relational skills and competencies that AI, at least for now, can only approximate.
If you haven’t yet, I’d encourage you to do a quick audit of your week’s work and then be honest about how much of it can be done with AI today or will be done with AI in the next 18-24 months. How will you position yourself and your skills and your use of AI to stay ahead of the curve – or at least not fall too far behind it?
The Real Opportunity Is People
As I consider these questions not only for myself but as I look at talent development more broadly, one thing holds: AI cannot replace human-to-human relationships. So, the optimistic view of all of this rapid, AI-driven change is that if we can master the tools of AI, we can focus more on the people.
Perhaps never before have the fundamentals of effective people leadership and management, of being a great team member or providing personalized customer service, of building meaningful and resilient working relationships, felt more imperative and opportunistic.
So, as I reflect halfway through 2025, I am nervous and curious and wildly uncertain about the future of work that AI is redefining. What I know for certain is that it’s here and it’s happening and my job is to make the most of it.