Can AI Engines make all the decisions?
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I read an interesting paper by MIT Sloan Research (The EPOCH of AI: Human-Machine Complementarities at Work) about AI and the skillsets needed by humans going forward.
The article mentioned several skills that are key in areas including business strategy and business strategy implementation. These skills need nurtured in and taught to your managers and employees.
- Empathy and emotional intelligence
- Presence and connectedness
- Openness, moral judgment, and ethics
- Creativity and imagination
- Hope and visionary leadership
This is an interesting list. I would add to this: general decision-making skills. The reason for this is as AI develops it will become an increasingly important resource for building future strategies. The questions posed to AI engines and agents will become more complicated and the situations more uncertain and riskier. The answers AI tools give rely on the features of the tool but also on the information the tool is given. As AI tools become more involved in strategic decision making – the answers generated are more open to interpretation, and the recommendations and action plans are more uncertain and riskier.
As a simple example, if you ask 2 different AI engines where you should go on vacation – you might get 2 different recommendations. What do you do? This requires decision making on your part.
As the future of AI unfolds, think about what your managers should do when there is inherent risk and several opposing views in an area – some of this driven by AI tools and agents. As AI becomes more relevant at work, managers need to have the decision-making capabilities, insight and judgement necessary to deal with these complex situations.
REFERENCE:
Loaiza, Isabella and Rigobon, Roberto, The EPOCH of AI: Human-Machine Complementarities at Work (Revised October 2025). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 7236-24, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5028371
About the Author
Rose Klimovich is Visiting Professor of Marketing and Management at Manhattan College in New York. She is also a Digital Marketing and Strategy consultant to small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Formerly, as the Vice President – Product Management and Product Marketing for Telx, Rose Klimovich created the Telx business strategy and developed the investment plan for new products and services in areas including colocation, cloud, Ethernet, and video conferencing. Rose’s team supported vertical markets including Financial Services, Media and Service Providers.
Prior to this, Rose was the Vice President of Business Strategy for AT&T, responsible for strategy development and investment decisions in new markets and technologies. Rose has more than 20 years of experience and achievement in designing, scaling and managing Internet, VPN and data businesses. Rose led AT&T to the #1 share position in VPN and to a leadership position in Internet Services.
Rose has an MBA and a BS in Math/Economics from Carnegie-Mellon University. Rose is Joint Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Venture Fund.
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