Complement or substitute? How AI increases the demand for human skills

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the nature of work, yet there is limited empirical evidence on how it affects demand for human skills. This paper examines whether AI adoption increases the prevalence and value of human capabilities that complement technical AI skills, such as analytical thinking, resilience, or ethical judgment, within and beyond AI-intensive job roles. Using a dataset of nearly 30 million job postings from the US, the UK and Australia, between 2018 and 2024, we distinguish between internal effects (within AI roles) and external effects (in non-AI roles) across companies, industries, and regions. This paper has three main findings. First, we find that AI-intensive roles are significantly more likely to require complementary non-technical capabilities, such as analytical thinking, resilience, and digital literacy. Second, these complementary skills are associated with meaningful wage premiums, particularly in managerial, sales or finance roles working with AI. Third, we show that AI diffusion has potential spillover effects: as AI adoption rises within companies, industries, and regions, demand for complementary skills increases even in non-AI roles while demand for substitutable skills - summarisation, translation or customer service - decreases. These trends hold across geographies, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, confirming the robustness of our findings. Together, these findings indicate that AI is not simply replacing tasks or requiring more AI developer skills; it may be transforming workforce skill requirements to favor human attributes that enhance collaboration with intelligent systems.