Issue Senior expertise becomes more valuable as AI takes bounded strategy

Summary

This issue argues that as AI takes over well-defined strategic tasks, experienced human experts become more, not less, valuable. EY's Americas Responsible AI Leader, Sinclair Schuller, predicts strategic contests between AI systems within ten years, with even odds of seeing them within three to five, and expects AI to beat human analysis in bounded domains. Such tasks include optimizing prices, coordinating logistics and spotting patterns in large datasets. EY argues that organizations must therefore deepen their pool of senior domain experts, who can manage human-machine collaboration, place AI insights in wider strategic and cultural context and apply the nuanced judgment that turns optimization into real strategy. The difficulty is that automation is eroding the entry-level jobs through which such expertise used to be built. EY therefore urges investment in new routes such as mentoring alongside augmented workers, simulation-based learning and cross-functional rotations.