Sir Martin Sorrell identifies the key AI skill for the future, echoing Bill Gates: ‘People who share will be the new kings and queens’

Sir Martin Sorrell believes the most valuable skill in the AI era may not be knowing more than everyone else, but being willing to share what you know. The advertising veteran and S4Capital founder says AI is democratizing knowledge inside companies, weakening the power once gained by hoarding information and rewarding employees who openly share it.

“I think the most fascinating area [in the development of AI] is what I call democratization of knowledge,” Sorrell says. “AI flattens the organization. In a multi-branded, multi-vertical, multi-siloed company, people develop power bases by controlling information. If information is available to everybody, if you give them access, it changes the dynamics. Good people who share will be the real kings and queens.”

ALSO READ: Karoline Leavitt leaving White House: Husband Nicholas Riccio is 32 years older, older than her mother and worth millions

AI could change who holds power at work

For decades, having information that colleagues did not have could provide an advantage inside a company. Sorrell is of the view that AI is poised to disrupt that dynamic by making knowledge much easier to access. His argument echoes a line from Bill Gates, who said in 1999: “Power comes not from knowledge kept but from knowledge shared.”

As AI tools become more widespread, employees may increasingly be judged by how effectively they use and distribute information rather than how closely they guard it.

ALSO READ: What happened inside Indiana Tim Hortons? 75-year-old customer dies after fight but employee escapes criminal charges

Sorrell says AI will transform advertising

Sorrell does not believe AI will wipe out 95% of marketing jobs, despite OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously suggesting that AI could eventually handle much of the work involved in marketing, content and campaign creation. “I don’t think 95% will go, but some will go,” Sorrell says.

Instead, Sir Martin Sorrell expects AI to make advertising significantly cheaper and more efficient. An industry that still relies heavily on manual work could increasingly move toward algorithm-driven systems.

ALSO READ: Quote of the day by Khalil Gibran: "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations..."

“In our business we have 250,000 people, mainly 25-year-old media planners and buyers, and they’re doing their work semi-manually, often wholly manually. That can’t work. In a hyperscaler-driven world it is going to be done algorithmically.”

AI could make information almost free

Sorrell is also optimistic that artificial intelligence has the potential to expand access to knowledge. He compares the technology with the internet, which opened up information to communities that previously lacked libraries and other resources.

“If you think about AI, which is like the internet on steroids, the marginal cost of information—not just in a company, but inside government, inside universities, to kids—is zero, and we can do things with these tools that we never could do before.”

ALSO READ:Jamie Dimon recalls being fired by Citigroup and surviving a near-fatal heart emergency: JPMorgan CEO says the setback “affected my net worth, not my self-worth”

The AI era could mean a 15-hour workweek

Sorrell also sees a possibility that AI could eventually reduce the amount of time people need to spend working. He pointed to economist John Maynard Keynes’ prediction that technological progress could one day make a 15-hour working week possible.

Sorrell believes that prediction was not wrong, it was just premature. “My basic thesis now is that Keynes was right, but he was 100 years too early.”

For Sorrell, the AI era could therefore bring two major changes: knowledge becomes widely accessible, while productivity rises enough to reduce the need for traditional working hours.