Are you leveraging AI learning or competing with it?

Strike a balance

To equip your future talent with core cognitive and creative skills, look for a balance of around 75% traditional teaching practices and 25% or so AI tools. Traditional teaching techniques include:

• discussions that build critical thinking
• hands-on activities that develop resilience
• peer collaboration that enhances social influence
• independent research that cultivates curiosity and lifelong learning.

Use AI tools to support future-relevant skills development through:

• immediate feedback on specific aspects of creative or analytical work
• “scaffolding” for developing human-AI collaboration capabilities
• metacognitive exercises that build self-awareness about skills development
• diagnostic tools that identify gaps in core competencies
• practice environments for technological literacy and AI fluency.

Practical implementation strategies

To implement this approach successfully, you need to prioritize future-relevant capabilities while thoughtfully integrating AI as a learning-enhancement tool. Use this checklist to assess your approach:

• does this learning experience develop core skills, as identified by the World Economic forum’s Global Skills Taxonomy, or out-of-focus capabilities?
• are we strongly prioritizing activities that build creative thinking, analytical reasoning, leadership, technological literacy, and other future-ready skills?
• would completing this task well require capabilities where humans add distinctive value, or could AI handle it effectively?
• are we ensuring that learning activities focus on developing areas where humans maintain competitive advantages?

A fundamental reimagining of leadership

This approach requires a fundamental reimagining of what leadership means in an AI-integrated world. Whether in the higher education classroom or executive training program, learning must emphasize creative thinking, analytical reasoning, adaptive leadership, technological literacy, and other capabilities where humans add unique value.

This will require courage to abandon traditional content that emphasizes out-of-focus capabilities in favor of learning experiences that develop the creative, analytical, and adaptive thinking students and leaders alike will need throughout their careers.