[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] "Until now, the value of knowledge work came from knowing more than others. Becoming an expert in a field and securing an area where you outperform others was the formula for raising your price. AI is shaking that formula."

Adam Grant (애덤 그랜트), a bestselling author and an organisational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, summed up the changes facing white-collar workers in the AI era that way in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ahead of the publication of his new book, "Vibe."

Grant said, "A good career used to depend on competence, but now it is in agility. The expertise you have today could be useless tomorrow."

When information becomes a common commodity, the ability to differentiate also changes. He explained that the ability to recognise patterns, connect scattered information and discern which perspectives are trustworthy is important. Grant stressed that "human judgment will come to outweigh expertise."

Grant cited weaving multiple pieces of information into a persuasive framework as something AI will struggle to do for the time being. He said, "Creativity may be shifting from generating ideas to selecting and refining them."

As a habit to adapt to the changed environment, he recommended trying one small experiment each week.

That means doing something you think might work better, looking at the result and then trying something else the following week. One example is rotating who leads a meeting each time. If the same person always leads, meetings can easily become formulaic, and he suggested checking whether changing only the facilitator brings out different views and changes the tone of the discussion.

He said, "I have a hypothesis that people are becoming increasingly skeptical of text information. Even so, communication by voice, like phone calls, is being used less." He added, "I plan to call someone directly to exchange views, without setting up a Zoom meeting, when I would normally have emailed an idea. I want to see whether that changes what I get and whether it changes the relationship."

He also suggested a way to persuade a boss who resists change. It is to first acknowledge the pressure the boss is under, then present 3 ideas to improve efficiency and ask which should be prioritised. He said a proposal aligned with the boss’s goals could be welcomed. "Negotiation research shows that when you give several options, the other side thinks about which is better rather than whether to accept it or not. They look for one to accept instead of a reason to refuse," he said.