What happened
AI systems increasingly train on highly skilled workers' expertise, such as top call centre agents and experienced developers, codifying individual skills into software. This process enables less experienced workers to achieve higher performance, as recent research highlights in call centres and coding tools. Human contributions become digital assets, allowing companies to scale expertise across operations and locations, even after experts depart.
Why it matters
Codifying human expertise erodes the scarcity of skill, fundamentally altering economic security and bargaining power for knowledge workers. Procurement teams could reduce labour costs by deploying AI-augmented, lower-skilled staff. CTOs and founders must reassess talent acquisition and retention strategies, as individual contributions become company assets without commensurate compensation. Teams should assume their work generates valuable training data and negotiate recognition or compensation for it.
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