What Students, Professionals Need to Do When AI Changes the Rules

Discernment, Maturity and Good Judgement Remain Essential

June 16, 2025

A recently released AI Index 2025 by Stanford University presents evidence that many AI systems now perform better than average human scores in several professional tasks. These systems are already influencing how decisions are made and how work gets done. Students and professionals, therefore, need to understand what this developing situation demands and how to respond to stay effective and relevant.

The report shows that “frontier models” – “frontier” here means the outermost edge of progress or capability, or the furthest point reached so far in AI development – are fast gaining ground. These models include GPT-4, Claude and Gemini 1.5, which can process and generate language, solve problems, write code and create visual content within seconds. Thanks to their ability to handle tasks, they are playing a daily role in decision-making, content creation and analysis.

Investment figures tell a similar story. In 2023 alone, private AI investment in the United States reached over $67 billion, according to the index.

Disruption

With these advancements, the expectations placed on workers are changing.

As AI raises the baseline for what can be done quickly and efficiently, professionals are expected to operate at a higher level, producing faster results, better insights or quality and more nuanced decisions. Therefore, it’s natural for employers to seek individuals who can apply AI tools effectively, think critically about what the tools produce and adapt quickly to new demands.

Tasks that follow fixed rules or repeat predictable patterns – such as document formatting, basic image editing, transcription, or summarisation – are now handled efficiently by AI systems. It makes little sense, therefore, to depend on such routine tasks as a lasting form of work.

Work that involves interpretation, emotional nuance, or contextual understanding – such as judging whether a design reflects a brand’s tone or weighing the ethical risks of a legal strategy – still relies on perception shaped by lived experience, cultural awareness, and interpersonal understanding. This is where time, effort, and resources need to be directed.

Professionals stand out through their ability to read between the lines, anticipate consequences and raise questions that go deeper than the visible surface. A designer handling a delicate project or a lawyer deciding how to present a case uses a sense of timing, empathy and an understanding of how people think and feel. These skills develop through experience and come from thinking carefully and making tough decisions again and again. Over time, they become stronger and remain important in any work that depends on good judgement and creative thinking.

Students, Young Professionals

Students and young professionals need to understand that learning to operate an AI tool is not enough. The tool should only support the other essential soft and hard skills, which must remain the main focus. To understand this, let’s take the example of a graphic designer and a legal researcher.

A graphic designer must be able to tell when a design works—not just in terms of how it looks, but in what it communicates, how it feels and why that feeling matters. A good visual doesn’t just fill space or follow a trend. It reflects a message, a tone, or a truth about the client or the moment. That kind of judgement comes from seeing a lot, thinking deeply, and refining one’s sense of what is appropriate, meaningful and effective.

The same applies to a legal researcher, who must notice the detail in a document that could shape a judge’s thinking, or understand which argument may be correct but unwise or unfair to use. A well-chosen line of reasoning, like a well-placed visual, carries weight because it is grounded in maturity, good judgement, and a sense of what serves the larger purpose.

Discernment, taste and ethical awareness do not come from faster tools or bigger datasets. They grow over time through effort, reflection and critical engagement. The risk with AI is that students and young professionals may begin to trust its output too early, without having developed a clear sense of value themselves.

The way forward is to treat AI as a tool for execution, not as a sole guide for decision-making. Young people should keep asking whether something makes sense, what message it gives, and if it should really be done that way. Practising this kind of judgement is slow and often uncomfortable, but it builds the habits that make professional work reliable and respected. AI can assist, but the direction must still come from someone who has taken the time to learn what quality feels like.

Mid-Career, Senior Professionals

As for mid-career and senior professionals, the way they’ve worked for years no longer meets today’s demands. Employers may now expect quicker output, sharper judgement, and better decisions made with the help of AI from them as well. To grow in this new environment, professionals with years of experience must adapt the way they work, by reshaping their own role with clarity.

The first shift is in mindset.

Experience is still an advantage, but it only counts when it evolves. Professionals who have been known for their dependability must now become known for their adaptability. This means learning the tools that matter to their field and building fluency at their own pace.

For example, a communications lead who once edited press releases manually now needs to learn how to review AI-generated drafts critically, using their knowledge of tone, messaging and reputation risk to shape the final version. A programme head who used to collect data for reports over weeks must now learn how to work with AI tools that pull and format data instantly—so they can focus on what the data means and what action it calls for.

The second shift is in the type of value they offer.

Earlier, senior professionals were valued for completing high-responsibility tasks themselves. Now, they need to direct, assess and improve work done with AI support. A designer no longer spends three days building every element from scratch but decides which of the AI-generated options carries the message best. A lawyer no longer reads every document line by line, but must know where to look, what to question and what detail might change a case.

The third shift is in how they work with others.

Professionals in leadership or team roles must stop avoiding the tools just because they feel unfamiliar. They must create space for trying, failing and learning.

Those who continue with the same methods, relying on past success, may find their influence fading. But those who bring curiosity to their experience and are willing to change how they plan, review and deliver can shape the future of their profession. People may start turning to them for steadiness, clear thinking and the ability to make sense of new ways of working.

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