Demis Hassabis Urges Lifelong Upskilling for AI

17 Sep 2025

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told an audience in Athens that the single most important skill for the AI era is “learning how to learn.” He warned that “a huge change is coming,” and argued workers and students must adopt continual, lifelong upskilling to stay relevant as AI reshapes education, jobs, and industries.




Hassabis suggested that AGI — AI matching humans across most tasks — could arrive within a decade, bringing transformative advances and a potential future of “radical abundance.” To thrive, he said people will need meta-skills: the ability to constantly optimize how they learn new subjects and tools, rather than relying on a fixed set of skills for many years. The piece stresses that the old model of learning one skill for 5–10 years is breaking down; instead, professionals should routinely track domain developments, adapt their approaches, and find ways to differentiate themselves as AI evolves.