An article fromDive Brief Younger workers may be falling behind in critical thinking skills

The three largest skill gaps in the younger workforce represent “the very skills most essential to humans in the AI era,” per a report from Cangrade.

Published June 30, 2026Lara Ewen Contributor

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Listen to the article 2 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief:

• Generation Z and millennial workers may lack some important soft skills needed to succeed in artificial intelligence-related roles, according to new research from AI candidate screening platform Cangrade.
• Across every sector, five soft skills appeared in most AI-related job postings, with 83% requiring at least three, the report said. When assessed, younger workers were 14% above average when it came to communication and just below 1% in strategic thinking.
• However, these younger workers were 18% below average in critical thinking, 17% below average when it came to attention to detail and 10% below average when it came to creative problem solving, per the report.

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The three largest skill gaps in the younger workforce represent “the very skills most essential to humans in the AI era,” per the report, which analyzed 200 AI-related job postings, almost 72,000 validated workforce assessments and 40 competencies.

In particular, the report stressed that critical thinking skills — the area where younger workers showed the largest skill gap — were necessary in AI-powered workplaces. That’s because “human skepticism and judgment become non-negotiable” when dealing with systems that “generate confident but sometimes incorrect outputs,” the report said.

Meanwhile, communication skills are a clear strength for Gen Z and millennial workers. That also represents what the report called “a foundational skill,” particularly at companies where AI is responsible for some tasks, but human workers interpret results and create effective prompts.

“AI makes execution easier, but it increases the premium on judgment,” Gershon Goren, founder and CEO of Cangrade, said in a statement. “If organizations assume AI will compensate for reasoning gaps, they risk scaling errors instead of performance, and their teams will reflect that.”

To help Gen Z and millennial workers as they advance in their careers, the report suggested measuring critical skills directly, rather than relying on resumes and interviews, which may not be accurate predictors of reasoning ability.

In addition, the report recommended investing in developmental training and carefully considering which core skills each AI-enhanced job requires. “Not every AI-augmented role requires all five skills equally,” the report added.

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