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The rise of the Superworker in the age of AI
CULTURE & CODE
By Joey Briones
We are living through one of the most profound transformations in the history of work. Demographics are shifting. Economies are straining. Technology — especially artificial intelligence (AI) — is rewriting the rules faster than we can keep up.
The story of the next decade will be written at the intersection of these forces. And it will define not only how we work, but what kind of future we build.
The perfect storm
Research from The Josh Bersin Company (Pacesetters in the Superworker Era) has revealed that we are facing a convergence of demographic and technological disruption.
Across developed economies, birth rates are falling below replacement levels. Workforces are shrinking even as the demand for productivity and growth accelerates.
Here’s the hard reality: job growth in the coming decade is projected at just three percent, compared to 13 percent in the last. Yet GDP growth targets remain around three percent annually. To bridge that gap, companies will need productivity gains of 25 to 40 percent.
The old model — “more workers equals more output” — no longer works. We cannot simply add people to keep economies moving. The only path forward is to make every worker more capable, more skilled, more productive, and more empowered.
This is where AI becomes not just a technology, but a necessity.
From fear to empowerment
The popular narrative is that AI will replace us. But new evidence suggests otherwise: AI is not here to take away jobs — it is here to take away the parts of jobs that never made us better.
Repetition. Paperwork. Administrative noise. These will fade. In their place, humans will focus on the very things that make us most human: creativity, empathy, complex problem-solving, and judgment.
The recently released Udemy Business AI-Powered Skills Development Report confirms this trajectory –84 percent of L&D leaders say AI improves learning effectiveness. Yet fewer than half of organizations are actually using AI in learning today. The gap between potential and adoption is wide — and it’s a leadership challenge, not a technological one.
The rise of the Superworker
Josh Bersin describes this shift as the rise of the Superworker.
In this new paradigm, the old divide between “workers” and “talent” dissolves. Every employee is now high-value talent. Every role matters. Every individual represents a pyramid of skills and potential contribution.
But building superworkers requires superlearning.Standardized training built for averages won’t work anymore. What we need is personalized, adaptive, AI-powered learning that recognizes every employee’s unique path.
Imagine:
- An engineer mastering a new tool 40% faster through an AI-personalized learning journey.
- A manager practicing empathy and conflict resolution in AI-driven role-play simulations.
- An HR professional leveraging AI assistants to design onboarding plans, identify skills gaps, and predict retention risks before they happen.
These are not futuristic scenarios. They are already here. The real question is: will we scale them boldly enough to meet the challenge?
The rise of the Superworker Companies
But it’s not just about individuals. To unlock this new era of potential, organizations themselves must evolve into Superworker Companies.
A Superworker Company does three things exceptionally well:
- Builds Talent Density: It doesn’t settle for average performance. Every employee is given the tools, training, and coaching to become highly skilled, aligned, and productive.
- Embraces AI-Powered Learning: It replaces one-size-fits-all training with adaptive, personalized learning journeys that accelerate proficiency and foster continuous growth.
- Hardwires Human-Centered Values: It ensures AI is used ethically and wisely, reflecting empathy, fairness, and accountability. AI enhances decision-making, but people remain at the center of culture and leadership.
These companies don’t just survive disruption — they thrive in it. By investing in people as superworkers and systems as superlearning ecosystems, they create an organization that can adapt, evolve, and lead.
In other words: the future of work will not belong only to superworkers. It will belong to Superworker Companies.
Human-centered, value-driven, decision-enhanced
Both Bersin and Udemy’s research converge on one principle: AI must remain human-centered.
It should never be a black box that dictates decisions. Instead, it should enhance human judgment, bring fairness and clarity, and expand opportunity.
Used well, AI can make hiring more consistent, learning more personalized, and workforce planning more precise. But it will only ever be as good as the values we put into it. If we train it with indifference, bias, or shortcuts, those will be amplified. If we teach it empathy, accountability, and creativity, those are the qualities that will endure.
The responsibility lies with us.
The optimistic outlook
Despite fears of displacement, the outlook is optimistic.
As workforces shrink, scarcity will make every worker more valuable. Wages will rise. Organizations will be forced to invest more in skills, training, and employee development — not as a perk, but as a survival strategy.
AI will take the tasks that held us back and give us the space to focus on work that pulls us forward. The result? Careers that are more interesting, more rewarding, and more human than ever before.
The question before us
So here is the challenge we must all confront:
Will we see AI as just another efficiency tool, or as the catalyst to unlock human potential at scale?
Because the era of the superworker has already begun. And the organizations that will thrive in this future are those willing to become Superworker Companies — companies where AI and human ingenuity combine to create work that is smarter, fairer, and profoundly more human.
AI is not the end of work. It is the beginning of better work.
Not the diminishment of human value, but the amplification of it.
Not the closing of opportunities, but the opening of doors we’ve never dared to walk through before.
The future will not reward those who wait and watch. It will reward those who build — workers who choose to learn, and leaders who choose to lead.
The question is no longer if we will need superworkers and superworker companies. The question is: Who among us will have the courage to build them first?