What it means to be human in the age of AI

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Introducing the first book from the AIEI Research Fellows, titled Degrees of Change: What AI Means for Education and the Next Generation. 

We’re opening the year with something meaningful: the first book from the AIEI Research Fellows. Degrees of Change comes from the Microsoft AI Economy Institute (AIEI), a research initiative that studies the economic and educational shifts happening alongside AI and turns those insights into practical guidance.  

The AIEI Research Fellows are a global group of scholars and practitioners within the Institute who explore how AI is transforming learning and work. Their research focuses on strengthening human skills, expanding opportunity, and helping institutions adapt with clarity and confidence.  

Degrees of Change arrives at a moment when AI is reshaping how people work, how students learn, and how institutions prepare for the future. With insights from researchers at 14 universities, it helps educators and policymakers make sense of these shifts. It starts with two questions many of us are asking: What does it mean to work with AI? What does it mean to learn with it? 

One of the book’s central ideas is reassuring. Even as AI takes on more tasks, the most important things we contribute are still deeply human. Our creativity, judgment, perspective, and ability to make connections no system can predict. These are the skills that help us decide when to trust AI, when to question it, and how to use it to strengthen—rather than replace—our own abilities. The book reminds us that thriving with AI doesn’t mean becoming superhuman. It means leaning into what makes us human in the first place.  

It also looks ahead to the future of learning. AI literacy is now a basic requirement, not a technical specialty. Students need flexible, AI‑integrated pathways that teach them how to question, evaluate, and collaborate with intelligent tools. Higher education is shifting toward models that blend human insight with AI‑powered exploration—moving from memorizing steps to understanding problems, designing solutions, and navigating ethical choices with confidence. 

Taken together, these ideas sketch a clear path forward. One where people lead with curiosity and clarity. One where institutions evolve with purpose. And one where AI becomes a partner that expands what we can do without narrowing who we can be. 

• Explore how Canada is building a sovereign AI economy—with new datacenters bringing AI infrastructure online beginning in the second half of 2026, enhanced cybersecurity protections keeping Canadian data on Canadian soil, and skills training helping 250,000 people earn AI credentials through Microsoft's $19 billion CAD investment. 

• Read the New Year issue of The Batch from DeepLearning.AI—a leading AI education organization—featuring a new proposal for evaluating AI systems’ capabilities for real, economically useful work and insights from experts across the field, including Microsoft’s Chief Data Scientist and head of the AI for Good Lab, Juan Lavista Ferres.   

• Read Brad Smith’s new blog on the Microsoft Community-First AI Infrastructure Initiative, outlining Microsoft’s five commitments to pay our way on electricity, minimize and replenish water use, create jobs for local residents, add to the local tax base, and strengthen communities by investing in AI training and nonprofits.   

• Watch the latest Tools and Weapons episode, where Microsoft President Brad Smith talks with Chief Data Scientist Juan Lavista Ferres about the growing gap between the Global North and Global South in AI adoption—and what it will take to close it, including electricity access, infrastructure, and skilling.  

• Learn how educators are turning AI learning into an adventure through Microsoft's Hour of AI partnership with CSforALL and Code.org—where surviving the first night in Minecraft, sending coded bugs into the arena, and prompting AI to generate code for a classic Snake game helps 25 million learners discover how AI really works, one playful hour at a time. 

The research in Degrees of Change shows a clear shift: AI skills have moved from bonus to baseline. With job postings doubling in a decade and employers reporting a 50% talent gap, AI skills are fast becoming a core driver of opportunity.

1. What excites you most about AI’s potential? 

What excites me most is that artificial intelligence is likely to become a true general-purpose technology. It is already reshaping how work is done across industries and occupations. Beyond efficiency gains, AI has enormous potential to improve job satisfaction—for example, by allowing people to delegate repetitive or routine tasks. Early evidence suggests that AI can particularly improve performance and satisfaction for workers who have historically lagged behind, which means it may contribute to a more equitable and sustainable workplace. 

2. How is AI reshaping opportunities for entry-level workers right now? 

On the one hand, some research suggests that automation driven by AI can negatively affect entry-level roles, as these positions often involve tasks that are easier to automate. On the other hand, AI also creates opportunities for entry-level workers to take on more responsibility earlier in their careers—particularly in areas such as teamwork, communication, and human interaction. As AI takes over certain routine tasks, younger workers may be able to focus more quickly on higher-value and more engaging aspects of work. 

3. Where do you see the biggest gaps between the AI skills employers need and the skills workers currently have? 

I see two major gaps. One clear gap is in core AI skills themselves: the ability to understand, use, and work effectively with AI systems. Our research indicates that employers are desperately trying to find talent with these skills, offering significantly higher wages and more job perks for AI-savvy workers. The second gap is in skills that are complementary to AI. Our research shows that as AI penetrates more industries, demand is rising for skills such as ethics, digital literacy, resilience, and teamwork. These human and organizational skills are essential for adapting successfully to an AI-enabled workplace. 

4. How can AI literacy and certification help close equity gaps, including gender disparities, in the labor market? 

In an experiment with recruiters across multiple countries, we found that AI skills—especially when formally certified—significantly improve hiring prospects. Importantly, these certifications help reduce longstanding labor market disadvantages related to gender, age, and lower levels of formal education. AI skill certification therefore has real equalizing power in the labor market, which is encouraging news for anyone looking to strengthen their career prospects. 

Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and research teams are showing how AI can consistently speed up progress, reducing weeks of analysis to hours and compressing years of scientific trial‑and‑error into days. Their work helps bring solutions within reach faster than ever before.  

New insights from the Microsoft AI Economy Institute show how AI adoption is shifting around the world. South Korea stands out as the clearest late-2025 success story, jumping seven spots in global rankings. Strong government policy, improved frontier model performance in the Korean language, and new consumer-facing features drove rapid growth across schools, workplaces, and public services. It has become one of ChatGPT’s fastest-growing markets, leading OpenAI to open an office in Seoul. 

In Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the AI for Good Lab partnered with Planet to assess building damage from severe floods. The team analyzed satellite imagery covering more than 1.2 million buildings in Sumatra, identified damage to 34,000 structures in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and mapped 156,000 hectares of flooding across the country. They also evaluated nearly 5,000 buildings in Hat Yai, Thailand. The AI models helped speed up the assessment process, giving emergency responders the timely data they need for relief efforts. 

Across Microsoft Research, scientists published 10 breakthroughs in 2025 that show how AI can accelerate scientific progress. Key advances include the Majorana 1 quantum processor, low-carbon seaweed-infused cement, and an analog optical computer that solves problems using light and smartphone sensors.  

Whether responding to natural disasters or reshaping scientific frontiers, these advances show how AI can deliver speed, insight, and real impact when applied with purpose.