Let us pause and reflect on some of the shifts and changes that we have have experienced over the past five years:

We were jolted from a seemingly calm pre-COVID-19 world to one of chaos while navigating a global pandemic and are now still in the midst of adjusting to a post-COVID-19 reality.
War, inflation, migration, and global disruptions have reshaped markets and supply chains.
The rapid rise of AI over the past two years has caught many off-guard.

While this paints a chaotic picture, there is a silver lining: human adaptability. Despite the relentless pace of change, we have continued to adjust, proving that resilience is our greatest asset in shaping the future of work.

The rise of AI at work

When discussing the impact of AI at work, there tends to be an uncomfortable mix between fear, awe, excitement, and anxiety, from “Wow, it’s amazing!” to “Is AI going to replace my job?”.

According to Singapore’s second National AI Strategy (NAIS 2.0), AI has progressed “from opportunity to necessity”, and people “must know” AI, not just see it as a “good to have”. The strategy goes on to add that rather than seeing AI as a threat, it can be the great equaliser, enhancing human capabilities rather than replacing them.

According to Gartner, by 2028, 50 per cent of organisations will replace traditional bottom-up forecasting with AI-driven autonomous planning. Organisations should prioritise piloting such solutions in small pockets so that users will become more comfortable with AI in their decision-making process. This would benefit in guiding the culture change.

Based on the World Economic Forum’s “Start vs Scale” model, “successfully deploying and scaling GenAI in the workforce is not about the technology but ensuring people are open to change and experimentation. Therefore, it is important to create a people-centred approach that empowers employees to adapt and promotes the right mindsets and behaviours across the organisation”.

AI can no longer be seen just as a tool; it is a fundamental driver in reshaping industries, organisational structures, ways of working and decision-making processes.

How AI is reshaping the future of work

The biggest misconception about AI in the workplace is that it will replace humans. But the reality is quite different. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025:

Generative AI will empower less specialised employees to perform expert-level tasks, expanding roles in fields like accounting, healthcare, and education.
AI will augment skilled professionals, equipping doctors, engineers, and electricians with cutting-edge knowledge to solve complex problems more efficiently.
However, without the right governance and ethical frameworks, there remains a risk that technological development will be focused on replacing human work, which could increase inequality and unemployment.

What might this augmentation of AI-human work look like? Humans currently handle 47 per cent of tasks, with 30 per cent augmented by AI and 22 per cent fully automated. By 2030, automation will climb to 34 per cent, reshaping industries, creating an almost equal one-third mix of human-driven, augmented and automated.

The disruptor is not AI, it is the human mindset.

Those who cling to “I can do this on my own” will struggle. Those who embrace ambiguity and shift towards a “We can do this better, with AI” will thrive.

Also Read: Can AI truly connect? The emotional dilemma of virtual influencers for women

What can organisations do?

Invest in re-skilling and up-skilling employees to keep up with AI advancements.
Start small and scale: Run small experiments in different parts of your organisation, not just in your tech teams.
Re-design Workflows with Human-AI Collaboration, but always have a human in the loop.
Adopt an adaptive, scenario-based strategy. We have to assume that the current version of AI is the worst, so we need to use scenario planning to anticipate the unexpected. Two drivers of these scenarios would be our level of Trust vs Ability in relation to AI.
Continuously refine mental models to balance analytical and experimental thinking.

Shaping the future

As AI reshapes work, it will also redefine learning. The complexity of future problems demands radical new approaches:

Experimentalism: Encouraging risk-taking, ambiguity, and trans-disciplinary knowledge
New mental models: Rethinking how we develop skills in a constantly shifting landscape
Human-machine partnerships: Leveraging AI to enhance, not replace, human intelligence

To prepare ourselves for an AI-augmented future, we need to think not just about work, but education as well. The way we develop skills and mindsets must evolve to meet the demands of a world where analytical thinking, adaptability, critical thinking and AI fluency are essential. This shift is not just the responsibility of a handful of organisations; it is global. These 4 models developed by UNESCO it will help us shape our world responsibly:

Learning to study, inquire and co-construct together

Learning is no longer meant to be an individual activity; it is a collective process of discussing and creating knowledge together. A commons-based approach to education emphasises connecting individuals across generations to co-create shared knowledge of humanity. Education must be framed as a shared endeavour, where knowledge is not just accessed but continuously refined through collaboration.

Learning to collectively mobilise

The future of work is not about learning to do what within a narrow, task-based scope. A core skill and competency that would help individuals thrive in the future of work would be developing collaborative capabilities that enable collective action. Trans-disciplinary learning would be one way to begin collectively mobilising individuals and organisations.

Also Read: Accelerating financial inclusion with AI: Unleashing potential with prudence

Learning to live in a common world

With the disruptions over the past 5 years, humanity has been reminded just how closely we are linked to one another biologically, politically, and socially. New forms of learning must prepare individuals and organisations not just for coexistence. The challenge for humans living on planet earth today and in the future is to make healthy, sustainable ways of co-living: with one another and with the planet. This change enables us to reshape common living as intertwined and a fundamentally shared experience.

Learning to attend and care

While autonomy, critical thinking and innovation remain essential, they must be balanced with a deeper understanding of relational and self-responsibility. We have seen the dangers of acquisitive individualism and diminished empathy that appear when autonomy comes at the expense of an understanding of relationality. Learning to attend and care would entail understanding ourselves as persons who are simultaneously capable and vulnerable. It would force us to reflect on how we affect and are affected by others and the world.

Considering this as one of the fundamental pillars of education would put our relationships with one another and with a more-than-human world at the centre of educational practice, which is crucial at an inflection point of human vs AI.

Let us create a more-than-human world.

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