He may be a major tech company CEO, but Matt Garman, chief of Amazon Web Services (AWS) has rather opposite advise for future jobseekers, including his children, when it comes to developing skills in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).

Not coding or IT, or even medicine, speaking to CNBC, Garman said he strongly believes in the need to develop more soft skills amid AI — something he said he also advices his children to follow. “Develop your critical thinking skills in college, no matter what subject you study,” he strongly emphasised.

“I think part of going to college is building [your] critical thinking. It’s less about the development of skills and it really is [about] how do you become a critical thinker? In some ways, I think that’s actually going to be the most important skill going forward,” he added.

Matt Garman’s advice for job seekers in AI age: Develop soft skills

Speaking to the publication, Garman added that he puts critical thinking skills as the “number one, biggest biggest key to success in the age of AI”.

“You’re going to want to be creative. You’re going to want to be [good at] critical thinking. And you’re going to want to be flexible. I think the ability to learn new things and adapt is going to be just as important as any particular skill that you learn,” he added.

The point he believes is to be good at tasks that AI cannot replicate or overtake humans in. While acing administrative tasks, something like critical thinking, making nuanced decisions or creative solutions is still a far dream for AI, the report added citing studies on the subject.

Besides critical thinking, Garman also highlighted two other important soft skills — adaptability and communication. “(Soft skills) are important today. I think they’ll be just as important, if not more important (in the future),” he added.

“Most customers still want to talk to a person and get personal insights and attention from a human being. Those people skills are going to continue to be super important for a long time,” he believes.

Human edge to make a difference as AI ‘takes’ jobs

Garman is not alone in his thinking. In September, Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of AI Research at Zoho Corp, echoed similar views. He felt that the human edge in critical thinking and reasoning will continue to be vital in the age of AI and large language models.

“Job roles will evolve, and it is important for everybody to make use of AI, the same way they did when internet came in. That said, human strengths in reasoning and critical thinking will remain essential, even in the age of AI and LLMs,” he told PTI in an interview.