A core challenge is determining which skills will retain value in an AI-transformed labor market, especially given continued uncertainty about which tasks and occupations will ultimately be automated.
The evidence on retraining programs is also mixed: decades of evaluation research finds that most government-funded programs produce modest or negligible wage gains, and the few with proven results tend to be intensive, expensive, and difficult to scale.
Workers most in need of retraining are often the least able to access it, due to income constraints, caregiving responsibilities, or lack of baseline credentials. And if AI displacement occurs rapidly enough, even well-designed training systems may be unable to redirect workers at the required pace.
Emergences Labs builds human competency models that define the transformative skills whose value compounds, rather than erodes, as AI advances, and researches how to cultivate human–AI collaborative agency toward individual and collective well-being.
Built in collaboration with leading labs
