AI is changing how we learn at work

AI is transforming tasks and workflows – that much is clear. What is less clear is how it is reshaping the processes through which people develop. In her latest article for Harvard Business Review, Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School suggests four “sense-making conversations” that business leaders can have while considering how their employees can gain expertise, build empathy, and form identity at work.

Firstly, she suggests that they consider what happens when AI makes the pathways to mastery disappear. As Professor Gratton writes, many leaders worry that “the very experiences that shaped their own careers—the practice, the frustration, the honing of the craft—are at risk of being engineered away.” She believes the goal should be to discuss how to keep human development at the centre of organisational learning, rather than letting AI take over the experiences that build mastery.

Secondly, she asks leaders to consider if we are drowning out the calm. Is the increased volume of content and the automation of knowledge work leaving space for “learning: calm, reflection, and the space to think deeply.”?

Thirdly, are we dulling what makes us human? In her experience, the capabilities that leaders value most in their employees are also the hardest to develop: discernment, intuition, moral reasoning, and, above all, empathy. “In adopting AI, are we unintentionally ridding ourselves of the very learning experiences that build empathy?” she queries.

Finally, Professor Gratton advises that leaders consider if we are eroding choice and identity. She cautions that “Many of the new AI-enabled tools nudge behaviour, propose next steps, or automate decisions. In doing so, however, they are also stripping people of the capacity to reflect, to choose, and to take ownership of their decisions.”

There is no doubt that AI will transform work, but Professor Gratton believes that people can, and should, determine whether AI transforms learning. As she concludes in her article: “In an age of intelligent machines, how do we ensure that people continue to develop into their most capable selves?”