Why wisdom matters in the age of AI

Social media is abuzz with ‘influencers’ showing off new artificial intelligence tools promising to optimise workflows, to stay on top of news and trends, and to make our lives more efficient. While one can optimise their work, knowledge acquisition, and even basic tasks, how do we decide what matters, and who is responsible for doing so? To harness and apply information in a relevant context is to turn knowledge into wisdom; this ability to discern is a step that requires judgement, prioritisation, and experience.

AI is not yet able to detect the subtle heuristics that humans use to guide decisions. It cannot yet read the room, anticipate unintended consequences, or adapt to the unspoken norms of a team; it can only predict possible outcomes. Wisdom shapes how we interact with clients and colleagues, how we build culture, and how we design processes to be efficient, inclusive, and adaptable. 

But wisdom is also fragile. As firms undergo generational transitions, a great deal of institutional memory is being lost. Not just technical expertise, but pattern recognition and mentorship, and as holders of culture and social capital, they play an outsized role in shaping a firm’s trajectory. For example, an HBR study shows that within a single organisation, approximately 700 retirements result in a loss of about 27,000 years of experience, which spans relationships with clients and partners, reputations, and the costs of onboarding new talent to transition into these new positions. The silver generation, professionals aged 50 and above, with their years of experience in an era pre-AI, will be essential to building this base. AI can help retain this wisdom and also reorient core skills and capabilities of workers. Firms, therefore, must invest in building something deeper and longer-lasting than a knowledge base, perhaps something like a wisdom base.

The challenge AI and an ageing workforce pose, therefore, is not only about navigating disruptions but also about how organisations harness their talent. Building a wisdom base means rethinking the role that experienced workers can play as they retire, restructuring hierarchies, and finally, the nature of employment itself to allow for these nuances to flourish. 

Corporate leaders have begun emphasising the importance of critical thinking, communication and emotional intelligence in their employees. For example, Bill Winters, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank, has argued that his liberal arts degree has become more valuable than his MBA because the former taught him to critically think.

Ironically, a virtual world, where information is available all the time, has forced people to be more present to get ahead. For example, in the United States, to overcome cheating and to meaningfully test students’ engagement with content, professors are reverting to handwritten or oral exams.

Similarly, offices are pushing their workers to return to the office to learn from their peers and pick up these subtle traits. Such skills help ensure relationships within and outside of a company are maintained and built on, while also ensuring firm values are continuously embedded across employees.

AI will continue to play a crucial role in such a process, not by replacing wisdom,
but by democratising access to it. If anything, it can help structure and preserve the experiences of the silver generation. At McKinsey, for example, an internal generative AI tool pieces together insights from thousands of past reports, making it easier for teams to access institutional knowledge.

In 2023 alone, it reduced employees’ research time
by about 30 per cent. AI has become a means to access knowledge more efficiently, while the application and interpretation of these insights still depend on human judgement and experience. For example, the scaffolding for a client presentation can be built using this AI tool, but the experience of dealing with a client comes down to the firm’s wisdom base.

In a world where the nature of work is ever changing, wisdom bases are critical to building organisational success. Artificial intelligence has upended the way we work today and will continue to do so.

Nonetheless, the experience of those that built their careers prior to the advent of artificial intelligence will get harder to capture, and those nuances will get lost to a world overwhelmed with information. 

(The writer is a senior policy advisor at WisdomCircle)