Educating for an AI World: No Small Shift
Today, I want to quickly highlight two reports and one article that demonstrate the enormity of the changes needed in education.
*The Microsoft Trends Work Report
There are many great observations in this report, but I want to highlight one: The importance of developing skills needed to manage AI agent teams.
As agents increasingly join the workforce, we’ll see the rise of the agent boss: someone who builds, delegates to, and manages agents to amplify their impact— working smarter, scaling faster, and taking control of their career in the age of AI. From the boardroom to the front line, every worker will need to think like the CEO of an agent-powered startup, directing teams of agents with specialized skills like research and data analysis. For those ready to expand their scope, this will be a career accelerator—but the data shows that leaders are ahead of employees. Bridging the gap will take more than access; it will require training, oversight, and a new way of working—one that leaders must help shape. Already, 28% of managers are considering hiring AI workforce managers to lead hybrid teams of people and agents, and 32% plan to hire AI agent specialists to design, develop, and optimize them within the next 12–18 months.⁹ Leaders expect their teams will be redesigning business processes with AI (38%), building multi-agent systems to automate complex tasks (42%), training agents (41%), and managing them (36%) within five years…. But with expertise on demand, the traditional org chart may be replaced by a Work Chart—a dynamic, outcome-driven model *where teams form around goals, not functions, powered by agents that expand employee scope and enable faster, more impactful ways of working.*
Helping students develop Human-AI management skills is now essential.
*China’s AI Education University Overhaul
Given the significant role AI is starting to play in the economy, China has approved 29 new majors. Many of these reflect the importance of working with AIs.
China has introduced a series of new degree courses, including AI education, smart audiovisual engineering and digital drama. The new options are designed to reflect the growing role of AI in modern society, and form part of 29 new degree courses announced by the country’s ministry of education. Other new degree courses announced this week include carbon neutrality science and engineering, international cruise management, and aviation sports. Other new additions intended to serve strategic areas of national interest include marine science and technology, and health and medical security. Smart molecular engineering, medical device and equipment engineering, and spatiotemporal information engineering have been included too. Six universities, including Beihang university, have been give guidance to add a degree in low-altitude technology and engineering. The ministry of education has also implemented a new mechanism allowing swift adjustments to university curriculums, in response to newly prioritised strategic areas.
Most US universities, which are currently facing many challenges, have generally moved at a much slower pace. US processes for similar changes are much slower
*Trump Signs Executive Order to Ramp Up K-12 AI Education
Discussions of AI need to move beyond “AI in the Classroom” to fundamentally changing how we teach and learn.
Superintendent Michael Nagler of Mineola Public Schools, N.Y., named "superintendent of the year" in 2024 by CoSN and the American Association of School Administrators, wrote that schools may need support for changes to the structure of education in general, so that teachers and students can benefit from the use of this technology. “Advancing AI shouldn't be limited to a discussion about products. I believe the impact of AI will fundamentally change how we teach and learn,” Nagler said. “So, when leaders think about this initiative, we should be discussing the needs of Generation Alpha and how schools need to shift practices to align with new technologies.”
All three signals point in the same direction: education can’t merely adopt AI tools—it must re-architect itself for an agent-driven economy.
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index shows that the next promotion won’t go to the person who masters PowerPoint but to the “agent boss” who can recruit, train, and orchestrate fleets of specialized AIs.
China’s lightning-fast rollout of 29 AI-centric majors proves that national competitiveness now hinges on turning every discipline—from low-altitude engineering to digital drama—into an AI-infused discipline.
The new U.S. executive order on K-12 AI education and commentary that classrooms must shift from “using AI” to thinking about how it will fundamentally change teaching and learning.
Taken together, these developments form a simple mandate: from primary school to postgraduate study, we must teach the skills that matter when your teammates are algorithms—strategic judgment, cross-disciplinary curiosity, ethical oversight, and, above all, the craft of managing intelligent agents. Systems that move fastest to weave these competencies into curricula will graduate students who aren’t just AI-literate but AI-fluent—ready to lead hybrid teams, re-invent industries, and steer the technology toward the public good.