Defining AI-Native: Find Yourself In The Human-AI Symphony

Brendan Hooft, CEO & Managing Partner of ESPER.

What should we teach our children? UNESCO reports that “over two-thirds of secondary-school students in high-income countries“ now regularly use AI, while the OECD’s latest survey of teachers found only about a third using it in their teaching. Our children are learning the tools faster than our schools are learning to teach them.

Stanford found that since generative AI became widespread, employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations has fallen 13% relative to their peers. Gallup reports that only one in five employees worldwide is engaged at work, yet engagement tells us how people feel about their work, not whether they are equipped for what it is becoming. Gartner predicted that by the end of this year, “20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their organizational structure, eliminating more than half of current middle management positions.”

For the first time, every stage of a working life is being rewritten at once. The question is no longer whether we must change but what we are changing into, and almost no parent, school, employer or government can yet answer it with precision. Without that answer, people cannot shape their own future, and nations cannot build theirs.

At LEAP 2026, one of the world’s largest technology conferences, held in Saudi Arabia, a 14-year-old boy asked me how he should future-proof himself. It reminded me of my son, who is also 14. Both deserve to know what to learn and to what standard, and to be enabled to get there. Answering that question with precision is what we set out to do.

The Talent Gap

Over the past 12 months, my firm has worked with a GCC national government to build the AI extension of its national digital skills standard, now under review. It draws on more than 40 reference frameworks, from ISO, NIST and the OECD to UNESCO, the EU and China.

Character Over Capability

1. Curiosity: A genuine hunger to learn and explore, well beyond AI