Everyone’s Hiring AI Engineers. But Who’s Preparing the Humans?

A recent Business Insider article (“The hottest tech job candidates in America”) reported that the most in-demand job candidates in America right now are AI engineers and researchers. If you have a PhD in data science, you are part of a very small pool of sought after candidates being chased by recruiters offering six- and seven-figure packages.

They’re not wrong. Tech firms, VCs, and entire national economies are placing massive bets on the supply side of AI, with faster models, bigger infrastructure, and sharper data science.

But as I read that article, something kept nagging at me. We are investing billions in machine intelligence… but who is preparing the human intelligence that must now figure out how to work with it?

No one seems to be asking another essential question: What happens to companies when machines become intelligent?

The AI Talent Bubble Has a Blind Spot

Every company wants to hire prompt engineers. Fine-tune LLMs. Scale generative tools. The assumption seems to be that if they hire enough people who build AI, they’ll be ready for the future.

But we’re already seeing the cracks. Inside organizations, leaders are overwhelmed. Teams are confused. Employees aren’t sure whether to embrace AI or fear it. Managers are either frozen in place or spinning out half-baked AI use cases without any strategic grounding.

The missing link isn’t more AI capability. It’s human adaptability. The real transformation isn’t technical. It’s cognitive.

Leadership-as-Cognition

AI is changing the human cognitive terrain of work. In this new landscape, old leadership models won’t hold. We’re no longer just managing people. We’re managing people and machines. Decision-making is distributed. Strategy is more dynamic. Context is shifting constantly.

And yet, most leaders were trained in a model of leadership that assumed:

• I must have the answers

• I need to control the process

• I should be the most competent one in the room

But when a machine can out-analyze you, out-write you, and out-summarize your last board meeting in 3 seconds flat… how do you lead now?

We need an upgrade in human thinking to match the upgrade in machine capabilities.

This is a true AI Leadership Gap. And it’s growing wider every day.

We Don’t Just Need Engineers. We Need Guides for How Humans can Collaborate with AI.

This is why I wrote The AI-Enhanced Leader: How to Upgrade Your Thinking and Leading. Not because I believe humans are becoming obsolete, but because I believe humans are at risk of being outdated in an era that demands more cognitive power than ever before.

The breakthrough of this moment isn’t another AI tool. It’s the emergence of a new kind of leader:

• One who can offload cognitive complexity to AI and refocus on insight, strategy, and wisdom

• One who can rewire outdated thought patterns through intentional neuroplasticity

• One who sees AI not as a threat, but as a second brain, as a partner in perception, not just a processor

• One who leads with awareness, not just intelligence

We need more than upskilling. We need inner upgrading.

Why L&D, Coaching, and Cognitive Design Matter More Than Ever

If you’re in Learning & Development, Talent, Coaching, or Organizational Transformation, you may not see yourself reflected in the “hottest tech jobs” lists. But make no mistake, your role has never been more urgent.

Because what’s coming next is not just a skill shift. It’s a human-level cognition shift. The ability to reframe, re-perceive, and reinvent how we think… that is now the primary job of leadership.

I call this new capability Synergistic Leadership, a fusion of human development, neuroscience, and human-AI collaboration. And I believe it’s the future of leadership itself.

Let’s be clear, we do need brilliant AI engineers. But engineering the future is not just a matter of hardware, code, or models.

• We also need Transformation Architects—those who can redesign leadership.

• We need Cognitive Coaches—those who help others expand awareness and rewire behavior.

• We need Human-AI Synergy Experts—those who can translate this tech leap into a human growth leap.

If you’re feeling the gap between the pace of technological change and the speed of human development, you are not alone. And if your job is to help humans adapt, evolve, and lead through complexity…then you are the missing piece of the AI revolution.

The Book Is Out. The Conversation Has Begun.

I wrote The AI-Enhanced Leader because I didn’t see many people preparing leaders for the mental shifts required by this new world. The book is not a tech manual. It’s a cognitive playbook.

It covers:

• Leading in the space between human intuition and machine intelligence

• Collaborating with AI to develop a second brain 

• How to rewire your leadership identity to meet the moment

If you’re building AI but not investing in the human side of the equation, consider this idea: the future of work won’t be led by machines. It will be led by humans who learn how to lead with them.

Let’s Connect if You’re:

• Rethinking leadership in the AI era

• Redesigning L&D for the future

• Building programs to support executive evolution

• Developing your own second brain

We don’t just need more AI talent. We need a new kind of human talent that is evolved, aware, and ready to lead in partnership with machines. That’s the real revolution.

Get the Book: The AI-Enhanced Leader: How to Upgrade Your Thinking and Lead with a Second Brain

Now available on Amazon → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FC2BCGPJ

Read the original Business Insider article (may require subscription) → https://tinyurl.com/yc47mw4w