Steffi Burkhart – Ideas and theories on the development of AI

Guest Article by Dr. Steffi Burkhart

Impulses and theses on the developments of Generative AI and its impact on our aging society and the millions-gap in missing workers, new entry models for graduates, large-scale further training, and a culture that preserves knowledge.

Technology + Talent + new Thinking (3-T Strategy) – only those who combine all three “T’s” will be among the winners of the transformation.

“The demographic gap is real and unavoidable. Generative AI is one of the most powerful levers to reduce it. The winners of this transformation will be those organizations and countries that bring together technology and talent – and anchor both in a culture that fosters innovation, learning, and responsibility.”

1. AI developments and the aging of our society

In Germany, we are experiencing a massive and foreseeable labor shortage while generative artificial intelligence is developing at a rapid pace. By the mid-2030s, the large baby boomer generation will retire. The result: around 6 million fewer workers – and too few young people entering the labor market. Even with optimistic immigration, the gaps will not be completely closed.

Without countermeasures, the shortage of personnel threatens to become the largest brake on growth. People will become the raw material of the future. In addition to real-time information and data, human capital will become the decisive production factor and innovation driver. While in the past, growth was determined by the availability of capital, technology, and raw materials, in the future, it will be the ability to attract enough qualified people, retain them, and increase their productivity. → This is precisely where generative AI can become a decisive lever.

Accenture, for example, has measured annual efficiency gains of 8 percent in best-practice companies, cumulatively up to 30 percent – with consistent integration into processes and business models. With AI diffusion across all levels of a company, I expect completely different numbers. The potential and scope of AI developments in efficiency gains and innovative power are not yet fully tangible – or understandable – for any of us.

Age structure of the workforce

Germany is the second-oldest country in the world. The median age is well over 40 and rising. Fewer people of working age mean that contributions to growth must come more from productivity increases and innovation.

The IMF and OECD estimate that aging societies without technological leaps can lose 0.5–1 percentage points of economic growth per year.

From a behavioral economics perspective, the median age of a society – and also in leadership circles and committees (politics, business, administration) – influences decision-making, risk appetite, and innovation dynamics. Risk aversion increases (Prospect Theory, Kahneman & Tversky), the so-called status quo bias is reinforced, leading to slower innovation diffusion and changing preference structures.

Such effects can be mitigated through deliberate design of decision-making environments, intergenerational collaboration, and targeted incentive systems – which, in my observation, is unfortunately applied far too little in practice.

At the same time, there is a need for the systematic development of a talent pool at all levels of an organization. Investments in intellectual capital are more central than ever! Internal qualification and further training measures are one way to respond to current developments. For years, I have considered a continuing education obligation necessary in view of technological developments. The EU AI Act now introduces in Article 4 an obligation to ensure AI literacy for companies and workforces. It is – and will be – grossly negligent if companies do not continuously and strategically prepare their workforces for the co-play between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. This should by now have reached all decision-making circles. The urgency for this must be created from the very top.

Beyond internal measures, it is also important to attract talent from outside – something that is becoming increasingly difficult as our society ages. On top of that, from 2030 onwards, all industrialized nations will be in the same boat: companies will no longer compete for staff only within the same industry, regionally or nationally, but worldwide!

This makes the current discussion all the more puzzling, as the first companies are cutting entry-level jobs due to new AI capabilities. Handelsblatt wrote in August 2025: “AI displaces entry-level workers (…) The number of job offers for young professionals reaches a low point.”

The hidden danger: Know-how loss

The IESE Business School warns of a previously little-discussed side effect: implicit know-how loss. In traditional structures, entry-level employees learned “on the side” from experienced colleagues – through observation, joint projects, and informal exchange. If entry-level positions are greatly reduced, this knowledge transfer disappears. Without targeted onboarding programs and mentoring, there is a long-term risk of a decline in competence, reducing productivity and innovative capacity.

Yuval Harari emphasizes in his lectures that technological efficiency gains without cultural knowledge transfer can lead to a long-term erosion of competence – a silent decline in skills that neither machines nor algorithms can fully replace.

Rethinking entry-level jobs instead of abolishing them

Cutting them is fatal in view of the demographic trend and its impact on the labor market. If companies in this phase focus solely on cost reduction, entire entry-level career stages may disappear. By 2035, an estimated 75% of Germany’s workforce will consist of Generations Y, Z, and Alpha. If companies stop investing in young entrants, no pipeline can be built. That’s why I advocate for a paradigm shift: instead of eliminating entry-level positions, companies should redesign tasks for newcomers – making them more interesting, challenging, and creative.

Statements from Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman reinforce this view. His book The Coming Wave (2023) is well worth reading.

Some companies are showing how radically entry roles can change: Shopify, for example, pursues an AI-first policy – hiring new staff only if it’s clear that AI cannot take over the task.

Skillset shift

A Deloitte survey confirms the gap: two-thirds of executives consider entry-level employees insufficiently prepared. Many classic learning areas – research, data preparation, presentation – are now handled by AI. Nearly 75% of companies are therefore calling for new competency development models.

This aligns somewhat with my provocatively stated opinion:

The pace of change will be so rapid that schools, training programs, and universities will no longer be able to keep up with adapting their curricula to these technologically driven changes. That’s why my key point today is that it will take an extraordinary effort from all companies to upskill and reskill both employees and entry-level hires – and to find new tasks and even new jobs for them within the organization. Otherwise, hundreds of millions of people worldwide will end up unemployed.

In the past, it was the job of schools, colleges, and universities to develop people. Now, it is the NEW AGENDA of companies to do this to a much deeper extent than ever before.

“AI Literacy and Human Literacy – the smart combination of Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence will determine success!”

In a future dominated by AI, skills and application competence will become more important than traditional academic degrees.

Gen Z and Alpha – Key generations for AI innovations

Generations Y, Z, and Alpha are quantitatively in the minority, but qualitatively very important, because they will somehow have to fill the millions-gap when the boomer generation leaves the labor market. They will be strong drivers for AI implementation and application in companies – and will thus sustainably change the way we work. And they will have to solve the pressing global, economic, and environmental problems.

Humanity will not achieve the 1.5-degree climate target. Who will solve the problem? We have high national debts in many countries, the generational contract no longer works, our public education systems do not adequately prepare young people for the challenges of the 21st century, we are heading towards a mental health crisis – especially among young generations – and we are piling problem upon problem that the younger generations will have to solve. It will no longer be the baby boomers.

In the past, we believed politics would solve such problems; now, in many industrialized nations – Canada, the UK, the USA – we face crises of trust in politics and politicians, who are currently dividing societies into left and right. We are witnessing what is happening in the USA right now, and it is likely to become even more dramatic.

AI can help

Unlike the purely platform economy, technology, and digitization, AI can make a decisive difference. As Yuval Harari points out, the human species is not as clever as we like to believe. That’s why the co-play between human intelligence and artificial intelligence is so important. Only in this way can we achieve globally relevant goals that we cannot reach with human intelligence alone.

I share the statement of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI:

• If he were 22 right now, he would feel “like the luckiest kid in all of history.”
• Altman says he’s not as worried about entry-level white-collar jobs as some of his fellow tech CEOs.
• Instead, he’s concerned about how much late-career employees will want to adapt to AI.

“In 2035, this college graduate – if they even still go to university – could very well embark on a mission to explore the solar system in a spaceship, in a completely new, exciting, very well-paid, and highly interesting job, and feel great pity for you and me because we had to do this really boring, old-fashioned work – and simply everything is better.”
https://tinyurl.com/3v4vkj76

What awaits us in the AI age will not only increase effectiveness, not only change education, but will create new knowledge, new sciences – and will change the way we think about the world, both in the smallest and the largest scale.

2. Reading Recommendation

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2025

A matter of choice

People and possibilities in the age of AI:
https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2025

At the first OPIUM LIVE Event in 2024 in Hamburg, my thesis was as follows: What companies like Google, Microsoft, and other players in this new AI ecosystem are currently working towards is the holy grail of technology – Artificial General Intelligence.

A new intelligent species that exists alongside humans on planet Earth and can not only generate creative ideas itself, be cognitively intelligent and empathetic, but also implement ideas independently. Among AI thought leaders, this is referred to as Artificial Capable Intelligence, consisting of IQ, EQ, and AQ.

Neither dystopia nor utopia is inevitable. The future is – or – Is the future of AI a matter of choice?

Are you interested in a keynote by Steffi Burkhart? Contact us: +41 (0)43 55 66 44 0 or steffi.burkhart@premium-speakers.com