Beyond AI: The Human Challenge

What poses the greater threat to organizational resilience today: a lack of artificial intelligence technologies, or a lack of people who know how to adapt to them?
If you were forced today to choose between doubling your investment in artificial intelligence and doubling your investment in employee development, which would you choose to strengthen your organization’s resilience?
These were the questions that opened the 15th Industry–Academia Conference at Braude Academic College of Engineering, dedicated this year to “Artificial Intelligence and Human Capital: Organizational Resilience in a New Era.”

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming nearly every aspect of our lives. It is reshaping the way we innovate, engineer solutions, manage organizations, and make decisions.
The scale of this shift is without precedent. In a little over two years, the share of organizations using AI in at least one business function has jumped from roughly half to close to nine in ten. Generative AI adoption alone has more than doubled year over year since 2023, and global AI investment has surged past half a trillion dollars in 2026 — a pace of adoption faster than any enterprise technology before it, including the internet and mobile computing. What was experimental three years ago is now baseline infrastructure. The question for institutions like ours is no longer whether this wave arrives — it already has — but who is prepared to ride it?

Yet the defining challenge of the AI era is not technology itself.
It is people.

The organizations that will thrive are not necessarily those with the most advanced AI tools, but those with employees who can continuously learn, think critically, collaborate across disciplines, solve complex problems, and confidently navigate uncertainty.
AI is not simply another technology to adopt. It is a test of organizational culture, adaptability, and leadership.

At Braude College of Engineering, this understanding has shaped our educational philosophy for more than three decades. Alongside rigorous engineering education, we emphasize the human capabilities that technology cannot replace – independent learning, creativity, teamwork, critical thinking, and practical problem-solving through extensive collaboration with more than 200 industry partners.
At the same time, we are embracing AI as an integral part of engineering education. Beginning next academic year, every student will be accompanied by an AI-Companion throughout their studies and into their transition to the workforce. Our goal is clear: AI should strengthen human judgment—not replace it.
This philosophy also lies behind the launch of our new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program. Tomorrow’s engineers must be more than outstanding professionals; they must become innovators, architects capable of transforming ideas into meaningful solutions. We aspire to educate not only future employees, but also future founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

Recent research reinforces this perspective.
A newly published survey of Israeli employers by TheMarker, Afeka Academic College of Engineering, and the Trump Educational Foundation found that the most valued qualities in the age of AI are not technical AI skills. High-tech managers ranked proactivity as the most important attribute, followed by self-directed learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Experience with AI tools ranked significantly lower.
The message is unmistakable.
Employers increasingly view AI as a skill that can be taught. Human qualities—initiative, adaptability, curiosity, resilience, and sound judgment—are far more difficult to cultivate and therefore far more valuable.
As AI becomes ubiquitous, technical knowledge alone becomes less of a competitive advantage. Human capabilities become the true differentiator.

When high-tech managers were asked what matters most when hiring new employees, the answer was—once again—not artificial intelligence.
You could say it was the other kind of intelligence… the natural one.
The message is clear: as artificial intelligence becomes an integral part of everyday work, the relative value of technical knowledge alone is declining. The human capabilities that are hardest to automate—initiative, self-directed learning, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving—are becoming the most valuable assets in the labor market.

Perhaps there is a lesson here from martial arts, where practitioners learn to harness an opponent’s momentum rather than resist it.
Instead of viewing AI as a force that threatens human potential, we should use its momentum to strengthen human capital, organizational resilience, and ultimately society itself.
This perspective is especially important today. As Israel faces significant security, economic, and social challenges, alongside a growing shortage of engineers and technology professionals, investing in human capital is no longer simply an educational priority—it is a national strategic imperative.
The AI revolution has already begun.
The question is no longer whether organizations will adopt artificial intelligence.
The real question is whether we will invest just as boldly in the people who will shape its future.