Anthropic Co-Founder: Soft Skills are Key to AI Integration

Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei has shared that she believes human skills will become more important for businesses as AI capabilities increase. 

While she says AI will continue to play a larger role in workplaces, it is the people who learn to work critically with the technology who will see the most long-term success – saying that AI can do a “vanishingly small” number of jobs without human intervention. 

Speaking to ABC News, Daniela shares: “I continue to believe that humans plus AI together actually create more meaningful work, more challenging work, more interesting work, high-productivity jobs. 

“And then I think it will also open the aperture to a lot of access and opportunity for many people.”

Anthropic’s talent acquisition strategy

When hiring, Anthropic says it seeks out candidates who it believes can meaningfully engage with AI in their work. 

The company ensures new hires are aligned with its long-term vision, seeking talent that appears passionate about AI usage – prioritising less qualified candidates over those who do not resonate with the wider company mission of responsible AI. 

This doesn’t mean the company has a sole focus on AI proficiency, however. According to Daniela, when Anthropic is hiring: “we look for people who are great communicators, who have excellent EQ and people skills, who are kind and compassionate and curious and want to help other people.”

It assesses these capabilities through its extensive interview process, which often consists of five to six stages. 

These interviews test candidates on their strategic decision-making, ability to communicate and their collaboration with AI tools – with prospective employees encouraged to use Claude in their application process. 

The importance of skills-based hiring

Leading organisations are increasingly prioritising the development of human skills as they grow their AI strategy. 

According to research from Deloitte, businesses that invest in human skills are more likely to see long-term success. 

The study, which surveyed 1,400 professionals from a range of companies, found that businesses that place equal emphasis on human and technical skills will remain more agile and capable of adapting to the changing nature of work – particularly as the half-life of technical skills declines.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, agrees. In a December 2025 interview with Fox News, he shared that soft skills are increasing in importance as AI usage grows. 

He said: “My advice to people would be critical thinking, learn skills, learn your EQ, learn how to be good in a meeting, how to communicate, how to write. You’ll have plenty of jobs,”

According to Daniela, one of the best ways to ensure people develop these soft skills is by studying humanities.

Daniela, who studied literature at university, says: “I actually think studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever. A lot of these models are actually very good at STEM. 

“But I think this idea that there are things that make us uniquely human – understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick –  I think that will always be really, really important. 

“And I think the ability to have critical thinking skills and learn how to interact with other people will be more important in the future, rather than less.”