AI made expertise abundant. Here’s what became scarce instead

“Put simply, what remains scarce? The scarce resources of the next decade will not be knowledge, expertise. They will be the things that remain uniquely human: judgment, leadership, relationships, ethics, accountability, and trust. The ability to bring together human and machine intelligence to create something that either alone could not.”

Llewellyn-Thomas isn’t alone in seeing judgment become a bigger differentiator as AI spreads. PwC’s Global AI Jobs Barometer has found a similar shift: demand for judgment and creativity is rising relative to some technical skills as organizations adopt AI.

That shift could also change what companies look for when they hire and promote. Credentials and years of experience have long been convenient ways to signal expertise, but they don’t necessarily capture someone’s ability to exercise judgment or make decisions when the answers are increasingly easy to find.

AI won’t work if the work stays the same

Llewellyn-Thomas, who has spent nearly two decades advising companies through disruption, offered two ways organizations can adapt. First, she argued, companies should stop treating expertise as something that only a few people can provide and find ways to make that knowledge available across the workforce.

“Capture the best thinking of your people and your advisors and embed them in AI-enabled workflow tools and decisions,” she said. “Let AI scale expertise so that your best people can focus on judgment, leadership, and accountability.”