Why Upskilling Is Now a Business Imperative
Updated: Aug 17
Lule Bunjaku Karapinar, CEO GCC Markets and Executive Education, LEORON Institute, shares insights on why upskilling must move beyond HR to become a business priority in the age of AI.
| Written by Lule Bunjaku Karapinar
For years, organisations treated upskilling primarily as an HR responsibility. It sat alongside employee engagement, onboarding and leadership development, often measured through training hours, completion rates and participation levels. These initiatives added value, but they rarely influenced the strategic direction of the business.
That has changed.
Technology is now evolving faster than organisational capability. Artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation are redefining industries, creating new roles, reshaping existing ones and changing how value is created. For business leaders, the question is no longer simply whether to invest in technology. It is whether their people can evolve quickly enough to realise its full potential.
This is why upskilling has moved beyond the HR function and into the boardroom.
Technology Alone Is Not the Differentiator
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding AI is that adoption itself creates competitive advantage. Yet as frontier models, automation tools and digital platforms become increasingly accessible, organisations are gaining access to many of the same technologies.
The real differentiator is the people using them.
Two organisations can invest in exactly the same AI capabilities and achieve entirely different outcomes. One may redesign workflows, accelerate decision-making and uncover new opportunities for growth. Another may simply automate inefficient processes and produce more of the same work, only faster.
What separates them is the skill, judgement and adaptability of their workforce.
Across the GCC, this distinction is becoming increasingly important. Governments have invested significantly in AI infrastructure and national digital strategies, creating the conditions for innovation at scale. The next challenge is ensuring organisations have the talent capable of translating those investments into measurable business outcomes.
In many ways, human capability has become the new infrastructure.
The conversation, therefore, needs to move beyond digital transformation to workforce transformation. Buying technology is relatively straightforward. Building a workforce that can continuously learn, adapt and create value from it is considerably harder; and ultimately far more valuable.
When AI Starts Replacing Thinking
There is another challenge organisations cannot afford to overlook.
As AI becomes embedded into everyday work, employees risk outsourcing not only repetitive tasks but elements of critical thinking itself. Research from Boston Consulting Group highlights the emergence of what it describes as “distributed deskilling,” where widespread reliance on AI can gradually erode judgement, creativity and problem-solving across organisations.
For leaders, this changes the purpose of upskilling.
The objective should not be to use AI to replace thinking, but to elevate it. The organisations positioned to outperform over the next decade will be those that teach employees how to question AI, challenge assumptions, consider alternative viewpoints and make better decisions; not simply generate faster outputs.
And that responsibility cannot sit with HR alone.
Upskilling Becomes a Leadership Priority
Business leaders need to determine which capabilities will differentiate their organisations in the future, which roles are evolving most rapidly and where investment in capability development can generate the greatest commercial return.
HR remains instrumental in enabling learning and development, but the priorities themselves must increasingly be connected to business strategy.
That also requires organisations to reconsider how they measure success. Completion rates and learning hours remain useful operational indicators, but they reveal little about whether learning is changing the business. Productivity, decision quality, innovation, customer outcomes, revenue growth and organisational agility provide a clearer picture of impact.
If capability is becoming a strategic asset, organisations should measure it like one.
The Competitive Advantage Is Human
Looking ahead, the organisations that thrive will not necessarily be those with access to the most advanced AI. They will be those that create cultures where learning is continuous, curiosity is rewarded and human judgement remains central to decision-making.
Technology will continue to evolve at an extraordinary pace. Human capability must evolve with it.
Ultimately, upskilling can no longer be viewed simply as an HR programme. It is an investment in an organisation’s ability to compete, innovate and adapt over the long term. In an era when powerful technology is becoming accessible to everyone, the greatest advantage may belong to businesses whose people know how to think, adapt and lead.
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