The future of education
Originally posted on Medium on Jan 29, 2026
I’ve been thinking about the intersection of education and enterprises, in relation to the future of work. What will the future of work look like? Most importantly, how might we shape the future of work?
Together, we’re living through a Moneyball moment of work, where businesses and companies are leveraging and adopting AI, but we’re using outdated organizational operating systems that were built for a different game.
With AI, the game is quickly changing, but our organizational systems are not. We’re undervaluing the real drivers of performance and success: the very ones that will give companies, teams, and individuals the competitive edge: especially in the world of AI. That’s ethical reasoning, systems thinking, adaptability, trust, loyalty, and flexibility, your social and relational fluency, ability to handle ambiguous situations, and of course AI literacy.
So these are going to be the skills and capabilities — but we currently aren’t assessing, measuring or valuing them in the workplace today. For example, how do you define “qualitative” skills like empathy or adaptability? How do you measure it? They’re not always good nor relevant — so how much is too much? When do you use it. When do you not use it. These are the very things we’re going to be having to design organizational systems for. So how do we design workflows, roles, teams so that AI is doing the bulk of the manual, unnecessary work that it does best — design it so that humans are in the loop to the extent they need to be — then redesign the additional time created so that it allows humans to do what humans do best. How are we thinking through designing the underlying organizational systems and environments that are conducive to these scenarios?
If now what used to make me 10 hours, I can do in 1 hours with AI, the 9 additional hours, I can grab coffee with a potential client, I can work on a hack project with some teammates to create a new product or feature. I can go watch my kid’s soccer game. There’s ways that we can not just reduce cost, but deliver and drive additional value — and that’s what we’re trying to do for both businesses and individuals.
And all of that’s one part of the equation. First it’s actually learning, adopting, integration, operationalizing AI in ways that are scalable and can be truly ingrained. So it’s not just workflow or organizational redesign — there’s a lot of upskillling and reskilling involved. There’s so many AI courses and videos out there — tools and platform — it’s overwhelming. Like I even don’t know where to start or which ones to use, right? And all of them aren’t the right fit for everyone. So it’s identifying what the right solution is for your company — depending on the values of the leaders, industry, how they work etc. How do you fit it in to where we are today — because it’s not going to be an easy switch. And then actually working with the individual people and teams to make sure they genuinely are learning to use the platform and tools. And actually are using them in ways they’re suppossed to and changing behavior. And behavioral change doesn’t happen overnight.
Another scenario, I was chatting with a leader who was telling me about the way he’s integrating AI on his team and he says that he’s sees two main types in his direct reports — one category uses AI to make them more efficient — so they do the same amount (and quality) of work in less time. The other category, uses AI to be more efficient and produce net more work in the same amount of time. So I was asking him — how does that impact performance, promotions, team morale? What are other managers seeing and doing? Are there any standardized guidelines for the company? And the answer is no.
The thought is we use this opportunity to start to think differently. Sarah is a superstar — she has the personality to leverage AI to be more efficient and she uses it to deliver net additional output of the same task. Bob, on the other hand, is a people person. So he leverages AI to also make him more efficient. he delivers the same amount of original output in less time, but with his additional time created, he plays to his strength to create, build, and foster relationships with new potential clients and existing customers.
Do both have the same value? Are they both worth the same thing? Are they rewarded the same way? I don’t know what the answer is either — but we do need to start thinking about it and leaders need to start figuring out what’s right for their teams and organizations.
So that’s the first part of the equation.
The second part of the equation is that the same type of work has to be done for the future leaders and workforce. And that’s our education and academic institutions. I was chatting with students, professors, administrators. And I was asking them, how do you leverage AI, do you leverage AI, what’s the policy around using AI on campus? I was focusing on higher education and institutions.
There were 3 camps of thought. Some said there was no AI usage allowed — professors wanted purely original work. Some said, AI is allowed — at the professor’s discretion. Others said, AI was encouraged — there’s even courses like AI, Society, and Technology. But the clear consensus was 2 things: 1. There is no standard. 2. Whether they’re allowed to or not, students are leveraging AI.
And I personally think they should — but they should leverage AI to make them better. Make them not just more productive and efficient — but also more creative and innovative. The younger generation already is using AI, and they know how to use it better than anyone. So instead of restricting them, how about we guide them so we ensure they’re developing the other skills and traits that matter? Genuine critical thinking skills, social and relational skills, maybe they learn how to create a product in school. they learn how to build companies.
I’m a proponent of leveraging AI to cut the unnecessary grunt work, but I’m also a firm believer in the notion that practice makes perfect. Put in the work and put in the time. That there’s value in the blood, sweat, tears that someone puts in. It builds things like habits, resilience, work ethic, motivation, and character. So from the educational perspective, we have 3 main challenges to solve for when it comes to students.
Integrating AI into educational systems — and creating guardrails that promote honesty, safety, and learning. Maybe we tell students: It’s okay to use AI, we already know you do. We’ll help you figure out how to use it properly. You can handwrite your original essay in the classroom. Then pop it into ChatGPT to edit and refine. You can have Chat GPT generate an outline. But you write the actual essay. You can have ChatGPT to write the essay. But then you print it out and then you deconstruct and analyze it — where was it weak, where was it strong. What would make it stronger? What was missing? What do you agree or disagree with? Discuss with your team or other students. There’s so many opportunities to provide effective guardrails that will foster both efficiency and learning, while still leveraging AI .
Leverage AI to build new skills and abilities, perhaps life skills — financial literacy, how to create a product, how to create a company, what you need to know about taxes, budgeting, applying to jobs, etc. Creating curriculum and sessions that allow students to genuinely be set up for success not only in school, but in life.
Redesigning the systems and practices to develop and cultivate the human skills — communication, collaboration, empathy, resilience, and integrity. Actually designing and creating curriculum for skills that are at risk of being lost — if not actively cultivated, developed, fostered, and encouraged early on.
The opportunities are endless. There’s a lot of startups and companies doing customized learning, virtual learning, tutoring, twins of professors, etc. But from a systemic perspective, the responsibility is large.
There’s also plenty of challenges and opportunities for AI to operationalize and provide value for professors and administration — but there’s plenty of EdTech startups and companies solving for specific workflows and pain points. So we can leave that discussion for another day.
How do the two parts of the equation fit in and why is it important to do this in parallel? And the answer is because we have to — or else we risk mismatch in supply and demand. You can’t have the future workforce develop skills that workplaces don’t know how to appropriately acknowledge, assess, or integrate at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. And you can’t have a workplace that values skills, qualities, and abilities that we’re not intentionally developing in future employees like professional etiquette, communication, social/relational fluency, etc.
They have to be done simultaneously and in tandem — so that there’s a seamless and beautiful integration to both systems.