Artificial intelligence has drastically transformed many industries, making skills that were invaluable yesterday obsolete today. By 2030, 70% of the skills used in most jobs are expected to change, and AI will be the main catalyst.
In Hollywood, however, this kind of disruption is an old trope. The industry has spent decades watching new technology reshape roles—films being shot against huge LED screens instead of physical sets, electronic stabilizers removing the physical barrier to operating Steadicams, and digital scouting tools letting production teams find the perfect location without ever visiting it.
Having spent more than a decade working as a director’s assistant and the past six years building AI tools to simplify filmmaking’s grueling preproduction process, I have learned a few things about hiring in an environment of constant change—lessons that could help other leaders as they navigate the AI age.
Evaluate candidates by their highlight reel, not their résumé
Business has long used experience as the ultimate measure of whether someone is right for a role. You sort through résumés and interview those who have been doing it for the right number of years.
If Hollywood took that approach, however, Tom Cruise would be playing the baby-faced Peter Parker over Tom Holland, who took on the iconic Spider-Man role with few credits to his name. When choosing a cast, you don’t necessarily hire the person with the biggest status or the longest career. You hold auditions, see how people interpret the role, and hire the person who fits the character.
Hiring managers need a similar mindset today. AI has dramatically transformed industries and roles, rendering many skill sets honed over decades almost entirely obsolete. When it comes to AI, there will be juniors with a year of experience on their résumé who understand and utilize it far better than a veteran with 20 years in the field.
Experienced candidates can be difficult to pass up. But hiring for the AI era means looking beyond what someone has done and considering what they can do now, and whether those skills align with the direction you’re taking the business in. They might not be a big name in the industry yet, but top talent will figure it out, and like Tom Holland, there’s a high chance they’ll become one of your brightest stars.
Stop hiring delegators, start hiring directors
In my time working on Hollywood sets, one thing consistently set the very best directors apart: They didn’t simply sit in the chair and wait for everyone else to do their jobs. They were constantly entering the set to reposition an actor or prop, rewriting lines that didn’t quite roll off the tongue, or insisting the cinematographer try a different angle. They were actively managing every little part of the production to ensure it reflected their vision.
In the corporate world, however, many managers aren’t directors; they’re delegators. They hand out tasks and rubber-stamp the final product. That works when you’re managing highly specialized people with vast experience in the field.
However, that often isn’t the case with AI. While it excels at menial, repetitive tasks, its work often still needs to be checked and scrutinized to ensure it’s understood the brief, that its sources are reliable, and that no hallucinations have slipped in. For more complex tasks, prompts often need refining and outputs need iterating to reach a decent result. Essentially, AI needs a director.
AI cannot replace the human touch
Technical ability was always one of the clearest signs that someone was worth hiring. If a candidate knew how to operate a particular piece of machinery or write a specific type of code, that was enough to set them apart. Businesses needed people who could perform specialized, repetitive tasks consistently, and that’s what their value was tied to.
That’s no longer the case in many regards. Across industries, algorithms can now replicate technical skills faster, cheaper, and often better than humans with years of experience. However, that won’t make humans obsolete. In fact, it will make the skills AI can’t learn even more valuable: human judgment, creativity, and taste. Knowing when an output crosses a line, whether an idea will wow audiences, or if it’s unoriginal and overdone.
These are the abilities that hiring managers should treat as essential in the AI era.
Some businesses will inevitably try to hand even those decisions to AI, and many already have. However, filmmaking has offered other industries a timely lesson this summer. While Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey drew praise for building its Cyclops and its ships for real rather than in a computer, Young Washington spent its opening weekend being picked apart by critics who spotted generative AI in its battle scenes. Two more films—Killing Satoshi (N.B. renamed Bitcoin) and Misaligned—were taking criticism months before either finished production.
When technology offers a cheaper, faster alternative, the temptation is to automate everything and hire no one. However, businesses need to consider both what AI can do and what it should do. There are some tasks it simply cannot complete successfully, and some that your customers and clients won’t want left to an algorithm.
