Most of us are still living by an Industrial Age life script — learn, work, retire. Yet, AI with human-like capabilities, able to operate around the clock, is making that script irrelevant. Our current educational, economic, and social frameworks weren’t built for the speed and scale of today’s change.
When capabilities become obsolete faster than ever, what should we teach, and how? If expertise can be automated, what does human relevance in work really mean? In a future that will require rapid adaptation, the static, three-stage life script no longer fits. Instead, we need a system where learning and work are integrated and continuous, with education designed for an AI-enabled world and career pathways that blend credentialling and professional growth across a lifetime.
Businesses are at the forefront of this shift — they operate at the edge of change, where new skill demands surface long before traditional systems can respond. Leading companies are already treating hiring as a step in the learning journey and building structures where work and education complement and amplify each other.
AI as the breaking point
For the past century, the broad framework for life progression — learning, career, retirement — has been largely unchanged. Innovation did occur within each stage, yet it did so largely within the existing framework, and new pathways to support a more fluid reality have not materialized at scale.
AI represents a breaking point. It accelerates skill obsolescence, redefines productivity by decoupling output from human hours, and shifts the premium from execution to judgement, making long-developing cracks in the legacy framework become obvious chasms. Given that, in principle, today’s AI capabilities could transform roughly 93% of jobs, we must reimagine our life script and implement new pathways that will enable humans to harness the tailwind of technological innovation rather than be grounded by its speed.
Despite progress with immersive, mastery-based approaches in some schools, K-12 education arguably relies too heavily on outdated teaching methods like memorization-based learning, siloed curriculum organized by subject, and schooling separated from real work. And while AI is now seen as indispensable in the workplace, with businesses considering its use critical to adaptation, teachers are struggling with how to integrate it into the educational experience.
Our scaffolding for work and retirement similarly lacks the plasticity needed to support more dynamic career paths and people’s desire to continue making meaningful contributions into later life.
Longer lifespans and rapid skill turnover suggest careers will be more fluid and people will have to cycle through multiple “learn – unlearn – relearn – work” phases over a lifetime, with periods of renewal built in. Yet the constructs of full -time employment, job ladders and narrow career progression remain the norm today. Digital native companies innovated here by embracing gig work, yet this model encounters added friction today, as many parts of our credit, housing and benefit systems are wired around W2 predictability.
Finally, we lack widely-adopted pathways for late career contributions. Too often, experienced workers end up competing for roles optimized for early-career strengths, when competencies that often deepen with experience – judgment under ambiguity, systems thinking, the ability to mentor, to de-escalate, to build trust — could deliver significant value. Intentional redesign must yield systems that allow for a gradual ramp-down without losing status, income, or belonging.
From sequential to parallel — an integrated journey of learning and work
Education, work, and retirement are ultimately institutional answers to fundamental societal needs: turning people into capable, value-anchored individuals who can navigate and improve their world; converting human potential into value, for oneself and society; and providing structured support for the work transition that comes with age, health changes or changing priorities.
With this first-principles approach we can design a new life script for a world enabled by AI, a script that supports human flourishing through continuous learning and growth.
Shaping the right mindset
Education must foster life-long learners who are proficient with AI but not dependent on it. This starts in K-12 schools, where students must develop the ability to think critically and adjust to shifting circumstances. If we engender autonomy, curiosity, and a drive for excellence at an early age, lifelong learning will occur naturally and help individuals create value, build a strong reputation, and remain relevant and adaptive even into later-life roles.
Practically, students can be encouraged to use AI for self-directed learning – finding information, synthesizing perspectives, testing hypotheses and evaluating AI outputs critically – while still being held accountable for the underlying comprehension. Similar to a calculator, AI becomes a tool that can accelerate and augment reasoning but does not replace learning or critical thought.
In order to empower educators to drive this shift, we need to also develop intentional learning pathways for teachers, with credentialled, hands-on training on emerging technology use cases and guardrails.
The convergence of learning and work
In a future augmented by AI, learning should take place throughout adulthood alongside careers, so it can provide on-ramps to new chapters. The lines between learning and work are increasingly dissolving.
A growing number of employers offer formal apprenticeship programs combining paid on-the-job training with related classroom work. In countries like Germany, Switzerland and Austria robust apprenticeship systems have long integrated education and employment, proving that when businesses and schools co-design curricula and offer hands-on training, young people can develop career ready skills quickly and credibly.
In the US, apprenticeships have historically been associated with the trades, but that’s changing. At Cognizant, we’re partnering with educational institutions on paid apprenticeships that offer work-based learning and serve as early talent pipelines. As technology companies, banks and healthcare organizations increasingly embrace apprenticeships as a way to develop talent from the ground up, startups such as BuildWithin are emerging to help them design and run these programs.
Fellowships are also gaining traction as an alternative to the traditional college route. Programs like the Thiel Fellowship and, more recently, the Palantir Meritocracy Fellowship offer financial support (and in Palantir’s case, hands on experience) for young people with the drive to learn by doing.
Clear structures for later-life contributions
A new life template also needs explicit structures for later-life contribution, with recognized roles and pathways that enable workers to change how they contribute over time. With life expectancy at around 78 years in the US and evidence linking a strong sense of purpose to better cognitive health, the future will require structures that help people continue contributing in ways that fit changing strengths, health, and priorities.
Businesses play a critical role in building a new, integrated system of learning and work because they see change first. They own the tools and data shaping modern work, and they sense when a capability becomes obsolete or when a new one is needed much sooner than traditional educational institutions.
Enterprises therefore have a dual responsibility. They must partner with schools and universities to bring real projects and tools into learning much earlier, contributing to blended programs that make work part of the primary learning environment. And they must build their own skills engines, with programs and credentials that are tied to actual roles and portable enough to support employees as they learn, re-skill and reinvent their careers across different chapters of their lives.
The new framework is already emerging, not through theory but through practice. If businesses and educational institutions converge to create joint pathways for an integrated learn-work journey, we can shape a new life template that prepares humanity for the next era.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
