The top competencies to invest in for an AI-powered future, along with practical ways to strengthen those skills and weave them into your everyday work.
AI is changing the way we work at lightning speed. Tools that once felt experimental are now handling everything from scheduling to drafting reports. By 2030, executives predict only 1/3 of work will be fully done by humans. That leaves us with an urgent question: How do we future-proof our skills?
As part of our 2025 AI Collaboration Index report, we asked leaders and knowledge workers around the world: As AI takes over more routine tasks, which human qualities will matter most? Their answers reveal a clear direction. Taken together, their answers highlight the timeless skills that become even more valuable in an AI future. Below, we’ll unpack five top skills to invest in for an AI-powered future, along with practical ways to strengthen those skills and weave them into your everyday work.
The top 5 human skills for the future of work with AI
1. Critical thinking
What it is: The ability to analyze information, weigh evidence, and form sound judgments.
Why it matters: Our research shows 42% of knowledge workers admit to trusting AI outputs without verifying them due to time pressures. Without critical thinking, speed translates to risk.
How to build it:
- Treat AI as a sparring partner, not an oracle. Ask it to show sources, generate counterarguments, or stress-test its own answers. Instead of defaulting to the first output, push it to “show its work.”
- Build a habit of slowing down your thinking before making calls. Even a brief pause helps activate deeper reasoning. Techniques like a simple pre-mortem exercise – or imagining what could happen during a project, both good and bad, and planning accordingly – sharpen your ability to spot twists and turns and strengthen your reasoning over time.
2. Creativity
What it is: The capacity to generate new ideas, identify subtle connections, and turn imagination into tangible outcomes.
Why it matters: As routine work becomes automated, creativity is emerging as even more of a competitive advantage than it was before. The World Economic Forum ranks creative thinking among the top skills for the future of work. In an AI-enabled world, the ability to spark original ideas – and refine AI’s suggestions into something fresh – is what sets humans apart.
How to build it:
- Use AI as a brainstorm buddy. Ask it for divergent exercises, rapid-fire prompts, or “bad ideas only” to unlock new directions and spark truly original ideas. You can also use AI to quickly prototype concepts—whether that’s a mock design or a sample script—so you can spend more energy refining and iterating,
- Seek inspiration outside your usual lane. Studies show cross-disciplinary exposure boosts creativity. For example, if you’re in marketing, you might look to architecture, art, or even biology to spark breakthrough ideas. Build time into your week to explore industries, media, or disciplines far from your own.
3. Emotional intelligence
What it is: The ability to recognize or tune into emotions – your own and other people’s – and use that awareness to guide how you respond.
Why it matters: Emotional intelligence (also called EQ) isn’t just a “nice to have.” Research shows it’s a strong predictor of job performance across roles, and it has a direct impact on your ability to make sound decisions, build stronger relationships, and manage your own stress.
In an AI-driven workplace, EQ only grows in importance. AI can analyze sentiment, but it can’t build trust, strengthen connections, or rally a team around a big idea. That’s on us humans.
How to build it:
- Do a quick end-of-day “emotion check-in.” Write down what frustrated you, what energized you, and how you reacted. Psychologists call this affect labeling – naming emotions out loud. It sounds simple, but studies show this practice reduces stress and makes it easier to regulate your reactions the next time around.
- Use AI for role-play. Ask your chat tool to behave like an upset customer or skeptical boss, and practice your response. Then ask AI to critique your tone and clarity. Think of it as a safe space to rehearse tough conversations.
4. Technical proficiency
What it is: The ability to effectively use, understand, and adapt to digital tools and systems that power modern work – including AI.
Why it matters: If you can’t work strategically with the tools of your trade, you risk getting stuck on the sidelines. Teams with higher AI technical proficiency don’t just use it to automate busywork – they unlock the full spectrum of AI’s potential by collaborating with it and embedding it across team workflows. Our data shows this strategic approach to AI improves the very nature of collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving.
How to build it:
- Jam with AI, regularly. Block off a weekly “practice block” with your team to try new tools, prompts, or AI-enhanced workflows. Our research shows that making time to experiment with AI can boost creativity by 21%, and buy you back hours down the road.
- Focus on impact, not just speed. Don’t just use AI to go faster – use it to go further. Ask yourself: Are we solving problems in innovative ways, or just automating the old ones? Fortune 1000 execs expect AI to help teams tackle nearly 2x as many innovative ideas in the next five years. Now’s the time to experiment and push boundaries.
5. Decision-making
What it is: The ability to weigh information, risks, and context to choose a path forward.
Why it matters: AI can crunch numbers and serve up options, but it can’t tell you what truly matters, weigh trade-offs, or take accountability for the call. Strong decision-making is what lets you filter the noise (which is extremely loud in the age of AI), identify blind spots, and turn AI’s insights into smart, human-centered action.
How to build it:
- Make your goals and priorities visible to AI. When you connect your objectives or team OKRs to your AI tools, you get more relevant recommendations and avoid wasted effort.
- Pressure-test your options with AI. Before making a decision, ask AI to “surface risks, generate counterarguments, or highlight what you might be missing.”
- Make fast, reversible decisions – and learn from them. Teams don’t need to wait for perfect information. And that’s not always realistic. Make small, low-risk decisions quickly, then use AI to analyze outcomes and pivot if needed. This “test and adapt” mindset helps teams move forward, even in uncertainty.
Our research shows that while daily AI use has doubled and perceived productivity gains are up 33%, only a small fraction of companies see true AI-enabled transformation at the team or org level. That gap underscores a truth: raw tools don’t build thriving teams; human skills and better processes do. So in strengthening these skills, teams don’t just keep pace with AI. They unlock its power to multiply their impact.