AI experts recommend key skills for employees to focus on as AI disrupts the workforce

The answer to many of these questions may not be knowable yet, but that doesn’t mean business leaders shouldn’t be thinking about them.

“I think we’re woefully unprepared,” said Atif Rafiq, founder and CEO of Ritual.work and author of “Decision Sprint,” at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco on Monday. “Organizations are not preparing their teams to tap AI to do it better and smarter, but on top of that, it’s a vulnerability for the workforce because AI, I think, is the ultimate bar-raiser,” Rafiq said. 

Ratiq spoke alongside Shane Luke, VP and head of AI at Workday, and Erik Brynjolfsson, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), for a conversation on the economic impacts of AI on the workforce, moderated by Fortune editor Jeff John Roberts. Together, they discussed how companies can get ahead of these problems, the impacts on recruiting, and what skills will be most valuable in an AI world.

Given AI’s ability to take over repetitive and straightforward tasks, the panelists agreed that there will be an increased need for human workers to sharpen their critical thinking, reasoning, and problem solving skills—and no, they don’t think software engineering roles will lose value, even as generative AI proves its ability to code. 

While the guest speakers all agreed AI will be massively disruptive to the workforce, they largely positioned AI as an augmenter of jobs that will help people do their jobs better. In terms of recruiting, for example, Workday’s Luke pitched AI as an enabler that would help companies review all candidates’ application materials even as hiring managers and recruiters continue…