Jing Jing Yang
ISB Class of 2019
Has worked with Chinese tech and AI companies on going global since high school
- Studied
- Worked
PTA Parent Coffee · October 14, 2026
The future of jobs and education in the age of AI
Our Kids’ Jobs Don’t Exist Yet.So Which Skills Will Matter?
This morning
From what’s changing at work to what you can do at home.
Your speakers · Arena co-founders
We trained at ISB, Caltech, Harvard, Brown, and Tsinghua, then did the jobs AI is now automating.
Phillip An
Forbes 30 Under 30
Co-founder and CEO of Skylarq AICo-founder and ex-COO of Homebase (raised $50M+)
- Studied
- Worked
The question behind today’s talk
When AI can
in seconds, what must our children still learn to do?
Section1
AI is already changing work, including the careers families trust most.
Examples in medicine, law, and finance
- 1Work is being rewrittenEven in the safest careers
- 2Three skills decide who gets aheadAgency, taste, and craft
- 3What families can do nowThree takeaways
Anthropic Economic Index · based on real use of Claude
In about half of all jobs, AI is already used for at least a quarter of the tasks.
Occupations where AI is used in at least a quarter of tasks
January 2025 report36%
January 2026 report49%
Anthropic Economic Index, Jan 15, 2026: share of occupations using AI for at least 25% of their tasks (36% in the January 2025 report). The 2026 figure pools data across reports and reflects how people use Claude, not a census of every worker.
Doctors · a randomized trial in China
With AI, eye doctors got the diagnosis right 92% of the time. Without it, 75%.
The EyeFM trial · Nature Medicine
Patients given the correct diagnosis
Eye doctors without AI75.4%
Eye doctors with AI92.2%
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tsinghua University, and others, Nature Medicine, Aug 28, 2025: 668 patients and 16 eye doctors at one center, retinal screening; correct referrals also rose, from 80.5% to 92.2%
Lawyers · a US trial, China, and US hiring
Law students using AI got 34% to 140% more done on most legal tasks.
A US randomized trial
+34–140%
more work done with AI, on 5 of 6 legal tasks
Without AI100
With AI134–240
Lawyers in mainland China
93%
of lawyers and trainees already use AI at work
Use AI93%
Large US law firms
−7.5%
new-graduate hires in 2025, the first drop since 2014
2024100
202592.5
Schwarcz, Manning, Prescott, and others, “AI-Powered Lawyering”, 127 law students, 2026; LexisNexis survey of 404 legal professionals in mainland China, via Caixin, Aug 29, 2025; NALP, Class of 2025, Aug 5, 2026, which does not attribute the drop to AI alone
Bankers · ICBC and Standard Chartered
At ICBC, China’s biggest bank, AI did work equal to about 13% of its staff in 2025.
55,000person-years
of work done by AI “digital employees”, at a bank with 409,758 staff
7,800roles
in corporate functions to go by 2030, replacing what its CEO called “lower-value human capital.”
ICBC 2025 Annual Report, March 27, 2026 (13% is our calculation); Standard Chartered investor event, May 19, 2026: 15% of corporate-function roles; Bill Winters later apologized for the wording
Amazon · from the memo to the cuts
Amazon’s CEO said AI will shrink its corporate workforce. It has since cut about 30,000 roles.
- June 17, 2025
The CEO’s memo
AI “will reduce our total corporate workforce”
- October 28, 202514,000
corporate roles cut
- January 28, 202616,000
more corporate roles cut
Amazon: Andy Jassy memo, June 17, 2025; workforce memos, Oct 28, 2025 and Jan 28, 2026. Amazon also cited cutting layers of management, and Jassy later said the October cuts were “not even really AI-driven.”
Who stays · from the same memo, June 2025
“Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI … will be well-positioned to have high impact.”
Andy Jassy, CEO of AmazonMemo to employees, June 17, 2025
What the skills are worth · PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer
The pay gap is already here: jobs that require AI skills pay 62% more.
62%
PwC
higher advertised pay for jobs that require AI skills
Comparable jobs100
AI skills required162
PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, June 15, 2026: average wage premium in job ads across 27 countries; it does not control for education or experience
Case study · Phillip’s companies
My last company had about 120 people. My AI‑native company has fewer than five.
Before · co-founder and COO
About120
people across sales, marketing, product, design, and operations
Backed by
Now · co-founder and CEO
- Product
- Design
- Marketing
- Social media
- Sales
Once separate hires, now two or three of us using AI.
<5
people on the whole team
Building AI agents that run sales and go-to-market.
If I hire again, I’ll only hire people who are AI‑native and highly leveraged with AI.
Young workers feel it first · Stanford, US payroll data
In the most exposed jobs, young people are already 19% behind.
Ages 22 to 25
−19%
employment in AI-exposed jobs, against peers their age in less-exposed jobs
Experienced workers
No gap
in the same AI-exposed jobs
Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen, “Canaries in the Coal Mine?”, revised August 2026; descriptive, not a causal estimate
China · 1,333 graduating students, May 2026
In China, 91% of graduating students changed their job plans because of AI, but only 57% are learning AI skills.
China Youth Daily
Adjusted job plans because of AI
91.1%
Actively learning AI skills
56.6%
China Youth Daily Social Survey Center and wenjuan.com, survey of 1,333 graduating students, published May 14, 2026
Section2
So three skills now decide who gets ahead: agency, taste, and craft.
- 1Work is being rewrittenEven in the safest careers
- 2Three skills decide who gets aheadAgency, taste, and craft
- 3What families can do nowThree takeaways
Google · Baidu · how the work gets done
AI is making the how cheap: writing code, drafts, and analysis.
75%
Google
of new code is now drafted by AI, then approved by engineers
52%
Baidu
of new code is now generated by AI, and its CEO wants 80% to 90%
Sundar Pichai, up from 50% last fall, Google Cloud Next / company blog, April 22, 2026. Robin Li, Baidu World 2025, Nov 13, 2025
World Economic Forum · Future of Jobs 2025 · 1,000+ employers
So value moves to what to do, and whether it’s good.
How to do it
- Write the code
- Draft the memo
- Run the analysis
What · whether it’s good
- Decide what to build
- Judge the output
- Lead people and AI
Essential now · rising through 2030
Analytical thinking69%
Resilience and agility67%
Leadership61%
Creative thinking57%
WEF Future of Jobs 2025, Jan 7, 2025, Fig. 3.3 essential now; Fig. 3.4 rising through 2030. Microsoft 2026 Work Trend Index; LinkedIn Skills on the Rise 2026
Name the scarce skills
Agency chooses, taste judges, and craft finishes.
The three skills
- 01AgencyDecide what is worth building before anyone assigns it.
- 02TasteJudge whether the output is actually good.
- 03CraftFinish it so people can trust it.
In a high school student’s week
What do agency, taste, and craft look like in practice?
Before
“Just give me the answer.”
The homework gets done. The thinking gets skipped.
Agency
Without being asked, builds a practice game with AI for a younger brother stuck on fractions.
Taste
Tries a few versions and keeps the one he actually wants to play, not the flashiest.
Craft
Fixes the questions AI got wrong and the buttons too small for him, until he can play on his own.
What children need
Skills grow from practice with structure.
- A real projectwith something at stake
- A coachwho asks how you checked it
- Honest feedbackfrom real people
National survey of schools · China National Academy of Educational Sciences, 2026
Studies show most schools still lack teachers ready to teach AI, so families can help now.
88%
of schools have too few teachers ready to teach AI
54%
of teachers lack confidence in teaching AI
CNAES survey, 3,653 responses across eastern, central, and western China, May–June 2026, published Aug 19, 2026. In the US, 68% of teachers had no school or district training on AI (Gallup and Walton Family Foundation, 2025).
Section3
So start building these skills now, while the gap is still small.
- 1Work is being rewrittenEven in the safest careers
- 2Three skills decide who gets aheadAgency, taste, and craft
- 3What families can do nowThree takeaways
Takeaway1
What families can do now
Know the latest AI tools, so you can guide your child.
- 1Know the tools
- 2Use AI for real tasks
- 3The best time to build
Takeaway 1 · personal AI agents, October 2026
Who has heard of these? Behind them, thousands of new AI models appear every day.
Kimi
Muse
Instinct
Manus
Genspark
OpenClaw
200+ more AI tools you could try today
Hugging Face
The world’s largest AI model library
4,386new AI models published on Monday, October 12, 2026
About 3 every minute3.1 million in all
Hugging Face Hub API: 4,386 public models created Oct 12, 2026 (UTC); huggingface.co/models lists 3,145,598. Both checked Oct 13, 2026. Tools: each tool’s own site
Takeaway 1 · METR Time Horizon 1.1 · January 29, 2026
AI’s ability doubles about every 7 months, so knowing how to use it compounds.
METR · length of task AI can finish alone
06 hours12 hours2023202420252026GPT-4 · 4 minClaude 3.7 · 1 hourOpus 4.5 · 4.9 hoursOpus 4.6 · 12 hours
For people who use it
Illustration, not data: the gap grows as the tools improve.
What you can do ↑Time →Knows how to use the toolsDoesn’t use themThe gap
METR, Time Horizon 1.1, Jan 29, 2026: doubled about every 7 months. METR data, checked Oct 13, 2026: GPT-4 ~4 min, Claude 3.7 ~1 hour, Claude Opus 4.5 ~4.9 hours, Claude Opus 4.6 ~12 hours. The right panel is an illustration, not data.
Takeaway2
What families can do now
Use AI on real tasks with real stakes, like a school project or a job application.
- 1Know the tools
- 2Use AI for real tasks
- 3The best time to build
Case study · my Kimi story · 1 of 3
Two months into learning AI, I applied to Kimi with tools I built.
What I built
An AI interview prep tool and a social media tracker
Plus a GitHub portfolio of things I’d built with AI.
In the interview
Both tools, shown live in the interview
My AI skills, and my view of Kimi and the global market.
For a non‑technical role, what I had built with AI made the case.
Case study · my Kimi story · 2 of 3
At Kimi, I handed AI the repetitive work and kept the judgment calls.
What I kept building
Tools for my own workflow
Built with AI to make my everyday work faster.
How I used them
Repetitive tasks, handed off
I chose which parts to handle myself.
What changed
I progressed quickly
First within my team, then across teams.
So I could focus on the decisions that mattered.
Case study · my Kimi story · 3 of 3
While still doing growth work, I was also put in charge of HR.
Kimi is an AI lab, so it expects more of its people. But it’s a preview: in five to ten years, this is likely what entry‑level jobs everywhere will ask for.
The reason
Leadership believed the company needed more AI‑native employees
Even for non‑technical teams in marketing, sales, and product.
What I look for first
Real fluency with AI tools
Knowing what to hand to AI, and what to keep.
Then
Agency, taste, and craft
Used well, AI frees your energy for more creative, impactful work.
Companies now value AI fluency, even in roles that don’t need technical skills.
Takeaway3
What families can do now
Despite all this, it’s one of the best times ever to be a kid, and the best time to build.
- 1Know the tools
- 2Use AI for real tasks
- 3The best time to build
Takeaway 3 · then and now
When we were young, ideas stayed in a notebook. Today a child can make one real.
When we were youngToday
Built by hand, and slowly.
AI builds a first version in an afternoon.
A team, and years of training.
One child can launch a first version in a week.
Only the family saw what you made.
Real users, before they leave school.
Takeaway 3 · Cursor, 2022 to 2026
Four MIT friends started Cursor in 2022. SpaceX bought it for $60 billion.
- 2022
Four MIT friends
start an AI coding tool
- 2023
Cursor launches
an AI code editor
- Nov 2025$29.3billion
Series D
valuation, with over $1B annualized revenue
- Aug 2026→
$60billionAcquired by SpaceX
an all-stock deal
Cursor, Series D post, Nov 13, 2025; Reuters, CNBC, and Bloomberg, June 16, 2026; SpaceX Form 8-K and PitchBook, Aug 14, 2026
Takeaway 3 · what children can build
In five days, an 11-year-old
turned sign language into speech.
- 01AgencyFind a problem
He chose sign language to speech because his cousin is deaf. Nobody assigned it.
- 02TasteReal-user feedback
He kept improving it after the demo, because his grandmother couldn’t use the first version yet.
- 03CraftFinish and launch
The hardest part wasn’t the AI. It was audio clear enough for her to trust.
AI tools did the building. He did the choosing, judging, and finishing.
Example tools
If you remember one thing
Work is being rewritten.
Children who choose, judge, and finish with AI will thrive.
- 1Work is being rewrittenAI is already used in about half of all jobs.
- 2Three skills matterAgency, taste, and craft: choose, judge, and finish.
- 3Become AI nativeIt’s never too early, or too late, to start.
The tools are new for everyone. That makes this the best time to be a kid.
ISB PTA Parent Coffee · October 14, 2026
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