Business news from Ukraine

The use of artificial intelligence has already become an everyday practice for most students and employees; however, in the labor market over the coming years, the key competitive advantage will remain not technical but human skills — communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and the ability to work with people. This was the conclusion reached by participants in the press conference on the topic “Higher education and MBA education in the era of artificial intelligence. Which professions and skills will remain with humans?”, which took place at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday.

As Director of the Center for Business Education and Advanced Training of the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship Maria Furman reported, the study, conducted on the basis of cooperation between students and business, covered more than 250 respondents from the fields of law, HR, IT, consulting, marketing, management, foreign economic activity, education, sales, and finance.

“Currently, more than 97% of respondents already use artificial intelligence in work or everyday life, and more than 50% turn to it at least once a day. The most widespread tools turned out to be ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and Copilot, while the main usage scenarios were explaining complex information, writing and editing texts, generating ideas, translation, data analysis, and preparation of summaries,” she noted during the presentation of the study “The Use of AI in Work and Everyday Life.”

At the same time, according to Furman, the spread of AI does not mean an automatic increase in trust in its answers. She drew attention to the fact that about 30% of daily functions are already being replaced by such tools; however, the largest share of respondents assessed the level of trust in AI answers as moderate — information can be trusted only on condition of verification. More than 50% of respondents always verify generated answers, another 33% do so if the information looks suspicious, and 13% do so when it concerns especially important work. In addition, more than 30% of respondents very often encountered distortion of information, while another 53.6% reported that such cases had happened to them several times.

“According to estimates by the World Economic Forum, by 2030 more than 40% of skills in the world will change, and this means a need for rapid retraining of both current employees and students. She emphasized that higher education must not simply familiarize young people with digital tools, but rebuild approaches to learning in such a way as to prepare specialists capable of working together with AI, rather than mechanically relying on it,” the expert stressed.

According to her, artificial intelligence has already become part of education and business, but its effect lies not in the complete replacement of humans, but in the transformation of their functions.

“That is precisely why analytical thinking, communication, adaptability, people management, emotional intelligence, and creativity are of particular value today,” Furman stressed.

She added that AI will not be able to displace managers, psychologists, HR specialists, communications managers, teachers, mentors, as well as those responsible for strategy and team development, since in these professions human trust, leadership, empathy, and the ability to work with context remain decisive.

For her part, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Vice-Rector for Scientific-Pedagogical and Educational Work of the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship Iraida Zaitseva emphasized that even the most powerful algorithms cannot replace a leader, since they are devoid of consciousness, creativity, and moral reflection. She recalled that a machine can advise cutting staff for the sake of higher profit, but is not capable of assessing the social, ethical, and even geopolitical consequences of such a decision.

“Artificial intelligence is a powerful engine, but only a human should be the pilot who knows where and why they are flying. We teach students not simply to use the tool, but to validate decisions, critically treat the algorithm’s ‘black box,’ and bear personal responsibility for the result. At the institute, AI is allowed to be used as an auxiliary means for structuring material or searching for ideas; however, the student is obliged to indicate the fact of its use, verify sources, and be responsible for the content of the work, otherwise this may be regarded as academic dishonesty,” Zaitseva noted.

CEO of Capolavoro Group (Brazil), lecturer at the Brazilian AMF institute, and investor in technology startups Wesley Lacerda focused attention on the risks of the improper use of artificial intelligence in business. In his assessment, the main danger lies not only in the technology as such, but in the gradual cognitive weakening of a person, when the user becomes accustomed to transferring their own memory, analytical abilities, speech, and even elementary ability to make independent decisions to the machine. In his presentation, he separately named cognitive deterioration, decline of intelligence, weakening of the ability for reflection, and loss of social skills as the main risks of the broad implementation of AI.

“Artificial intelligence should be used as a tool for data analytics, not as a replacement for human thinking. When a person ceases to understand what stands behind the machine’s answer, they lose their own cognitive abilities, and together with them, the ability to make independent decisions,” Lacerda noted during his presentation.

He also drew attention to the fact that the new wave of automation is generating demand first of all for AI analysts, AI engineers, specialists in AI Ops, and algorithmic audit, and not only and not so much simply for IT specialists. However, even in these roles, what remains decisive is the human understanding of what is being done and for what purpose, and not only the ability to write the correct prompt for the machine.

For her part, 3S Agency recruiter Sofia Vorushko emphasized that in the hiring sphere, artificial intelligence creates an illusion of objectivity, but still cannot replace a live recruiter. According to her, candidates are increasingly better prepared for interviews with the help of AI, use correct wording and socially desirable answers; however, the algorithm is not capable of fully reading non-verbal signals, understanding a person’s motivation, their real experience, and their fit with the culture of a specific company. She gave the example of two seemingly identical executive assistant vacancies, for which in practice completely different candidates were needed due to the different management styles of the managers.

“Today the market is evaluating an employee less and less only by hard skills and more and more by soft skills. Communication, resilience, flexibility, adaptability, leadership, and the ability to build relationships are becoming critically important, because they are the hardest to automate,” Vorushko added.

She referred to global estimates according to which 63% of employers call the shortage of soft skills a barrier to business development, 67% of companies are looking for flexibility and adaptability, 61% — leadership and social influence, while demand for social and emotional skills will grow by another 24% by 2030. According to the recruiter, currently 75% of an employee’s long-term success depends specifically on soft skills, while hard skills account for only about 20%.

At the same time, Director of LLC “Formatsiya” Mykola Hoi noted that for a business built on communication with clients, partners, dealers, manufacturers, and suppliers, the direct transfer of decisions to AI is extremely limited. According to him, in his company, which operates in the field of solar energy, about 95% of working time is precisely work with people, and therefore template algorithms are not capable of fully replacing live contact either in sales, in team selection, or in the development of marketing solutions.

“In business, artificial intelligence can be used, but only if its limits are understood very clearly. Founding a business, selecting a team, marketing, sales, work with the client, and rapid decision-making in a changing environment remain the zone of human responsibility, because here what is needed is not templates, but knowledge, experience, and understanding of another person,” Hoi stressed.

He added that the use of AI in HR processes can lead to mistakes if a company tries to assess candidates only by formal features, without giving a person the opportunity to reveal their potential in live communication.

Separately, the participants noted that the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship is focusing on specialties that, in the opinion of the organizers, are least susceptible to automation: personnel management, communicative management, and psychology. The institution reported that the cost of bachelor’s studies is UAH 42 thousand per year, and at the college — UAH 28 thousand per year; cooperation was also announced with partners in the Baltic countries, as well as in Poland, the UAE, and Brazil, where students can undergo internships. Thanks to the ontological approach, which helps develop the personality, and the combination of psychology with up-to-date knowledge from business practitioners, the institute’s students comprehensively develop personal and professional skills. This helps them become high-level managers and not be dependent on technologies. This level of training allows students, starting from the second year, to work in business projects in their professional specialty.

Summing up the discussion, the experts agreed that Ukrainian higher education and MBA programs can no longer ignore artificial intelligence, but also should not make it an end in itself. It is not about a struggle between human and machine, but about a new distribution of roles, in which AI takes over routine, analytical, and technical functions, while strategy, ethics, creativity, empathy, team management, and responsibility for decisions remain with humans. It is precisely these qualities, in the opinion of the event participants, that will determine a specialist’s competitiveness in the next 5–10 years.