If You’re Focused on Hard Skills, You’re Not Thinking Far Enough Ahead…

For decades, organizations have relied on labor arbitrage—shifting work to lower-cost markets to improve margins. But as more companies enter these markets, competition drives up wages, eroding the cost advantage. And the cycle repeats: relocate, shift work, start again.

Alongside this, firms use a leverage model—delegating routine tasks to lower-cost talent while reserving high-value strategic work to senior professionals. Ideally, labor arbitrage and leverage should work in tandem, though they operate on opposing axes.

To support this, organizations are investing heavily in global skills taxonomies—frameworks that catalog technical capabilities like coding, data analysis, and cybersecurity. The goal is to match work to talent, wherever that talent lives—Manila, Mumbai, or Minneapolis.

This approach is efficient, scalable, and measurable. But increasingly, it’s shortsighted. Because as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, soft skills will shape how humans lead the future of work.

The Supply and Demand of Skills

Viewed through a supply-and-demand lens, most organizations are focused on building technical skills. In fact, most upskilling programs, certifications, and learning platforms are geared toward building hard skills.

But what happens when demand shifts? Enter agentic AI.

Unlike generative AI, agentic AI can take initiative, make decisions, and execute complex workflows with minimal human oversight. It’s not just augmenting humans; it’s encroaching on functions once defined by their technical expertise. Consider the shift:

• GenAI writes content. Agentic AI publishes it, creates promotional posts, and schedules them across social channels.
• GenAI writes code. Agentic AI runs it live, monitors results, and iterates.
• GenAI drafts product copy. Agentic AI tracks leads and sends personalized outreach emails.

This is the inflection point. The pendulum is swinging—from hard skills to soft ones.

From Augmenting Humans to Humans Augmenting AI

Today, AI augments human capabilities. But soon, the inverse will be true. Humans will augment AI—not with technical knowledge, but with the soft skills AI can’t learn.

Where hard skills define what gets done, soft skills determine the how—how work is delivered, how teams collaborate, how decisions are made, how change is led.

As AI takes over the “what,” the “how” becomes the last—and most critical—frontier of value creation.

Where Humans Still Lead

Soft skills—such as empathy, communication, adaptability, leadership, and judgment—are notoriously difficult to automate. They’re contextual, emotionally intelligent, and deeply human. And they’re becoming the differentiator in a world where AI can do much of the heavy lifting.

Consider:

• Team Leadership: AI can assign tasks, but it can’t inspire a team, resolve interpersonal conflict, or coach someone through a tough client conversation.
• Client Engagement: AI can generate insights, but it can’t build trust, read a room, or navigate the nuance of a boardroom discussion.
• Change Management: AI can recommend a transformation strategy, but it can’t rally people around a shared vision or manage the emotional toll of disruption.

Also known as durable skills, soft skills develop over decades of experience, bringing wisdom that AI cannot code in advance. Instead, humans will continue to matter in these domains—areas where they will increasingly augment AI.

Efficiency Through the “How”

As organizations pursue margin improvement—whether through teams of humans, AI, global networks, or hybrid models—the next wave of efficiency won’t come from what work is done, but how it’s delivered.

This includes:

• Optimally delivering work as individuals and teams.
• Leading work and people with clarity, empathy, and purpose.
• Creating engagement through alignment of both skills and motivation.

When people are matched to the right roles, they bring discretionary effort—the extra energy, creativity, and commitment that no algorithm can replicate. That’s where the real performance lift happens.

By using behavioral insights in workforce planning, organizations can align talent not just by what they know, but by how they work. This creates a more resilient, adaptable, and human-centered workplace.

The Future of Work is Human-AI Collaboration

The future isn’t AI versus humans. It’s AI with humans—each doing what they do best.

AI will handle the repeatable, the scalable, and the technical. Humans will lead the relational, the contextual, and the emotional—all while guiding AI’s decisions and managing hybrid teams of humans and agents. Organizations that thrive will be those that recognize this shift early and invest accordingly.

If your talent strategy still focuses on hard skills, it’s time to look ahead to soft skills. Ask yourself: What is the labor arbitrage method of the future? More than likely, it will include virtual delivery centers of AI agents that humans manage and give context.

The road ahead is more complex, but full of possibilities. And that future will favor those who know how to augment the machine, not just be augmented by it.

Learn how Korn Ferry is helping clients unleash potential through AI.