Technology and AI sit at the heart of our fast-paced lives today. Think of the burgeoning e-commerce sector, for instance, where digital apps enable the quick delivery to home or office of items that a customer needs. As these realities grow more salient, a question worth reflecting on is: What does it mean to be a valuable professional today?

Nuance of skills

Recent layoffs across major global tech firms point to a shift larger than business cycles or market corrections. They reveal how quickly skillsets are evolving. Traditional, linear career paths are becoming less popular, and new roles that never quite existed before are becoming more common, even indispensable, to meet today’s needs.

A natural expectation from talent, in this unfolding future, is to grow continuously and adapt across emerging responsibilities and fields. While skills in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data analysis, strategic planning, and technology top the demand from employers, the key attraction remains good talent that typically combines specialised, domain-based skills with high-calibre work to produce results, achieve desired outcomes, and make a difference.

Human imperative

The question is not whether work will change. It already has! The appropriate question is whether we are prepared to keep learning as it changes. Think: AI ethics officers, carbon accountants, employee experience (EX) managers, information security analysts, and more. It is also imperative to take ownership of one’s work and get things done. We need thinkers and doers now more than ever.

Professionals today bring technical competence and digital familiarity. These form the foundation of one’s work. Yet, what distinguishes one from another is something more deep: the human signature that comes from how these skills are applied. This signature includes the ability to collaborate effectively, prioritise excellence, think ahead, pre-empt situationally, and make sound judgments in unique contexts.

It shows in how one communicates, plans, and manages teams, relationships, and networks. LinkedIn consistently highlights strategy, negotiation, project planning, and management among the most valued organisational skills. When enterprises lose professionals who embody these abilities, the gap is felt immediately.

These abilities, often labelled soft skills, are fundamentally leadership skills. They do not fade as technology advances. Instead, they become more visible and valuable precisely because they shape how technology is used and how work is done.

Exercising our signature with the right mindset

Continuous learning is more important than ever for career success. Therefore, when we step into college or university, it is not so much to learn, but rather to learn how to learn. We are curious by nature. We want to understand and ask questions to make sense of the world. We long for meaning and connection and make progress (happen) by connecting dots across disciplines, industries, and ideas, which is increasingly where innovation and opportunity lie.

We practice curiosity to not only nurture our interest in the world and be concerned about it, but also to keep ourselves updated and follow (and eventually lead) trends and developments. We therefore need to be lifelong learners—in areas that interest us, and also more holistically in forces that influence our interests, such as geopolitics, society, technology, and cultures.

And to do all of this, we need to be brave, not fear being left behind, have an open mind, and be absolutely comfortable with setbacks, while we continuously strive to move forward into a future that is most certainly transforming rapidly.

Growing skillset

We are living in a period of constantly finding out more and knowing more. As our interest and curiosity about the world grow, human beings find, discover, and create new tools and methods to meet those interests and to satiate that curiosity. Think: exploring oceans, mapping the stars, decoding the human genome. AI is such a tool that is here to serve us, our needs, and our curiosity.

While awareness of technology and AI is critical to survive in an increasingly automated world, it is our human skills in emotional intelligence, communication, creativity, and adaptability that will distinguish those who thrive.

(The author is Founder & Chairperson, Board of Trustees, Ashoka University. Views are personal.)