In the Age of AI, there are actually only two types of in-demand skills

Lately I’ve been reading a ton of stuff about “scarce skills in the AI era.” Jensen Huang listed five, Morris went with six, some people swear by taste, others talk about the courage to put yourself out there, and someone even used AI to analyze 320 podcast episodes to come up with ten. Put them all together, and you’re looking at easily twenty-plus different skills.👈👈

What’s funny is how little they actually overlap.

But if you lay them all out and group the similar ones, something really stands out: everyone’s just answering two different questions. One is how do you figure out what’s right? And the other is how do you get others to follow you?

The first one’s all about judgment. It’s basically your ability to make the right pick when you’re drowning in info and every option looks possible.

AI’s great at generating stuff, not choosing for you. ChatGPT will spit out 50 options in three seconds, but it doesn’t know which one actually fits you. Midjourney can churn out a hundred cover designs, but it doesn’t know which one’s gonna click with your readers.

When Huang talks about critical thinking, he’s really talking about judgment. He said the most valuable skill now isn’t knowing the answer, but asking the right question. Morris’s “aesthetic sense”? Also judgment. Some people define taste more bluntly as: the ability to make the right call when everything’s uncertain.

They might sound different, but they’re all pointing at the exact same thing. In a world where AI can generate anything, what you choose is basically who you are.

Then there’s the second one: connection. It’s your ability to pass on your judgment so other people actually want to believe in it and act on it.

Judgment points inward—you’ve gotta have your own standards first. Connection points outward—you’ve gotta turn those standards into a story other people can get behind.

Storytelling? That’s connection. Empathy? Connection. Motivating a team? Connection. And just having the guts to put yourself out there and be seen? That’s step one.

Someone with amazing taste who never shares it has the exact same impact on the outside world as someone with no taste at all. At its core, connection is just about turning your judgment into social capital.

Why just these two? Because AI’s basically flattening two things: how we get info, and how we create content. Knowing more isn’t an edge anymore. Moving fast isn’t either. Once information and execution are cheap, the only thing left that actually matters is whether you can make a good call, and whether you can get others to make it too.

Every other “scarce skill” on those lists? It’s either a subset of judgment, a subset of connection, or some overlap between the two.

Instead of bookmarking a dozen skill lists, you’re better off just asking yourself two questions: When AI gives you half a dozen options, do you actually have clear criteria for picking one? And when was the last time you put your own thoughts out there publicly?

In the AI era, we don’t lack info, content, or answers. What’s missing are the people who know what to pick, and the ones who can get everyone else on board with that same pick.