Essay
AI now gives everyone the same superpowers. The same answers. The same templates. And yet some professionals will soon be worth more than ever. The reason? Humanity — not as sentiment, but as strategy. Real knowledge only emerges when you combine information with what only you bring: your experience, skills and attitude.
AI now gives everyone the same superpowers. The same answers. The same templates. And yet some professionals will soon be worth more than ever. The reason? Humanity. Not as sentiment, but as strategy. The difference lies in three letters.
AI makes information free and infinitely available. But knowledge is different from information. Real knowledge only emerges when you combine information with your Experience, Skills and Attitude (EVA). In a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools, these three concepts become your most important differentiator. It's not what you know that makes you valuable, but what you understand and what you do with it.
A[i]dam and Eve were once the first people on earth. Now they're once again condemned to each other, albeit in a different composition. One fills the world with information, the other brings understanding. Adam, permeated with digital circuits, teaches his children from a book. Eve looks in the mirror and sees herself. Self-knowledge versus data knowledge. It's precisely that tension we're in the middle of now. But more on that in a moment.
But this isn't about a Bible story. It's about you. About the question of what still makes you valuable in a world where machines can do more and more.
What does that look like? A professor summarised it in a formula. Information, added over time, produces AI. But nowhere are you mentioned in this formula.
That formula describes what AI does: collecting information, endlessly, without limitation. But you're not a sum. You're not a variable in a calculation. What you add isn't in that formula, because it can't be calculated. Your experience, your skills, your attitude. That's what the formula lacks. And that's precisely what becomes your greatest asset.
After this, you can move on to The paradox of infinite information, because then you've given the reader a compass: we're going to talk about what you add.
We live in a remarkable era. Never before has so much knowledge been so easily accessible. You ask a question to an LLM and within seconds you have an answer that would have taken hours of research five years ago. Marketing strategies, legal concepts, medical information, technical manuals; it's all there for the taking.
It feels like a funfair where all the attractions are free. Sounds fantastic, until you realise that everyone's riding in the same bumper cars. The competitor who was still improvising a lot yesterday has access to exactly the same AI tools as you today. The same templates. The same analyses. The same answers.
Here's the paradox. The more information becomes available, the less that information is worth. Think of LPs and CDs. They've also long since disappeared, except for a handful of people who still attach value to them for nostalgic reasons. Beautiful collectibles, but no longer relevant to the mainstream. The question is: do you want to be the vintage record player that people look at fondly in the future? Or do you want to remain relevant?
If information becomes the great equaliser, what still makes you special?
You hear it everywhere. We're going to drown in AI content. Our jobs are being taken away. Soon we'll be able to do everything alone. That's of course utter nonsense, but it does touch on something real. The fear isn't in the technology itself. The fear is in the question: if AI can do what I can do, why would anyone still choose me?
I see it daily in my practice. Entrepreneurs come to me with AI-generated positioning. Neatly worked out, all boxes ticked, theoretically underpinned. And yet something's not right. It's missing something. But what?
Recently I sat with an entrepreneur who'd had his entire strategy written by AI. Impressive document. Eighteen pages with target group analyses, brand values and communication guidelines. He asked me for feedback.
I asked him one question: Why did you ever start this business?
Silence.
The answer wasn't anywhere in those fifteen pages. AI had told him what he should be, not who he was.
That's the real problem. AI can collect, organise and present information. It can recognise patterns and generate content. But it doesn't understand what it makes. It has no why. Ask it the same question again in five minutes and the answer could be completely different. Not because it's thought about it, but because the statistical calculation just works out differently.
Someone once called AI a stochastic parrot. Apt. It repeats patterns from everything it's seen, without understanding what it's saying.
If AI keeps getting better at delivering information, what's left for you? What can you add that a machine can't? Where does your value lie in a world where knowledge has become almost free?
This isn't a theoretical question. This is the question that determines whether you're still relevant in your field in five years.
Let me introduce you to EVA. Not a person, but an acronym for the three things that AI completely lacks and that you have in abundance: Experience, Skills and Attitude.
Where A[i]dam fills the world with data, EVA brings understanding. It's the difference between knowing and understanding. Between having information and being able to do something with it.
Experience is gut feeling. It's knowing without being able to explain it immediately. Arising from situations you've experienced. From conversations that had tension. From projects that derailed or unexpectedly worked. Experience leaves traces. Scars from failures, but also the confidence that emerges after a breakthrough.
AI has never felt the tension of a tricky client conversation. It hasn't experienced how a project slowly gets out of hand or unexpectedly tilts. It knows no scars from mistakes and no joy from breakthroughs. That's why AI can know much, but feel nothing.
In my work I notice this weekly. An entrepreneur says: I want to grow. But by now I often hear something completely different in the back of my mind. Sometimes someone actually means I want peace or I'm done with this or I want to prove I can do it. You don't read that in the data. You sense it. It's that intuition that warns you before you can name why.
That intuition isn't mystical. It's compressed experience. Dozens of situations you've experienced, stored consciously and unconsciously, that are consulted in a fraction of a second when you encounter a new situation. AI can't build that database, because AI experiences nothing.
Skills are what you can apply in practice. They're learnt abilities that you deploy to make, analyse or solve something. They arise through practice, repetition and experience. Skills are visible in behaviour and results, but they only really work well if the underlying attitude is right.
AI can list thousands of marketing strategies, but has never executed one. It can suggest a conversation structure, but can't sense when you need to deviate from the script. It can generate a brand strategy, but can't judge which model suits this specific entrepreneur, with this history, in this market.
Skills are about doing, not about knowing. Asking the right questions. Really listening, not just hearing. Judging, selecting, correcting. The ability to filter AI output through your own expertise and determine what's usable and what isn't.
This is perhaps the most underestimated skill of this moment: being able to critically evaluate what AI produces. Because AI doesn't lie, but it does fantasise. It presents nonsense with the same certainty as facts. Only someone with real skills can see the difference.
Let me explain this word briefly. Attitude is your inner stance towards learning, change and the unknown. It's curiosity. Daring to deviate from the beaten paths. Wanting to understand rather than just know. The willingness to step outside your comfort zone and keep learning.
Here it becomes personal. Attitude is also curiosity. It's daring to deviate from the beaten paths. Wanting to understand rather than just know. The willingness to step outside your comfort zone and keep learning.
AI has no drive, no direction, no course of its own. It optimises for what you ask, not for what you need. It has no opinion about where you should go and certainly no passion to help you get there.
Your attitude determines how you use information. Two people can get exactly the same AI output and do completely different things with it. One copies and pastes. The other uses it as a springboard for their own thinking. The difference isn't in the tool, but in the user.
Here's the core. As AI keeps getting better at delivering information, the value shifts from knowing to understanding.
You can look up information. You have to build understanding.
Take the strategy for your business. AI can present you with twenty positioning models in seconds. Porter's Five Forces, the Golden Circle, the Brand Key Model, you name it. The information is complete. But which model suits this specific situation? When is a model actually limiting? Which combination of models gives the best insight?
That requires someone who's been through comparable trajectories. Who recognises the nuances. Who understands the context. Someone who knows that models are tools, not answers.
That's not information processing. That's knowledge. And knowledge only emerges when information is combined with EVA.
Market value is shifting. Not away from knowledge, but towards a specific kind of knowledge. In conversations with entrepreneurs I keep seeing the same patterns. I see four types of people who flourish in this new landscape. Not because they're cleverer than AI, but because they combine knowledge, skills, attitude and experience in a way that AI can't.
The connector is someone with a broad view who sees cross-connections between fields. Where AI treats categories as separate, you see the unexpected connections. You combine insights from marketing with psychology, from design with strategy, from technology with human behaviour. Those combinations are precisely where the interesting solutions lie.
The context thinker oversees the entire ecosystem. Not just the problem, but also the stakeholders, the unspoken interests, the political sensitivities. You understand that a solution only works if the environment moves with it. AI sees the issue; you see the playing field.
The translator bridges the gap between what the machine produces and what humans need. You can translate complex AI output into comprehensible insights. You make it concrete, applicable, human. In a world full of information noise, that's a rare and valuable gift.
The innovator has not only knowledge and skill, but also the will. The attitude to work on issues for which there's no standard answer. You seek out the edges, experiment, dare to fail. Where AI optimises for the known, you explore the unknown.
Do you recognise yourself in one or more of these profiles? Then you have an advantage.
The theory is clear. But how do you translate this into practice? Five concrete steps that I apply myself and that I advise my clients.
Not everything you experience automatically becomes experience you can build on. Patterns only become visible when you record them. Take time weekly to reflect. What did I learn this week? Which situation surprised me? Where did my intuition go off? Write it down in a notebook or journal.
I do this myself through almost daily reflections. Short notes about projects, conversations, insights. After a year you have a treasure trove of material. After ten years you have a personal database that AI can't match.
The quality of your AI output depends on the quality of your input. Use your experience to ask the right questions. Not write a marketing plan, but which three assumptions in this marketing plan are most risky for a B2B service provider in a saturated market?
Your EVA determines the value of the AI output. The better you understand the context, the more focused you can ask, the more usable the answer.
Have AI generate three variants and consciously choose one. Name for yourself why you're choosing it. Train yourself in evaluating output. Where doesn't something add up? What's missing? Which nuance is absent?
Your critical faculty is a skill that becomes sharper through use. Every time you consciously judge AI output, you train your own expertise.
You don't develop attitude by staying within your comfort zone. Take on projects that challenge you. Talk to people outside your field. Read outside your own bubble.
Every uncomfortable situation is an opportunity to enrich your EVA. The projects I've learnt most from were the projects I was least certain about beforehand.
Use AI for what it's good at: first drafts, research, generating variations, automating boring work. But always add your own layer. Your anecdotes, your cases, your perspective, your doubts.
The combination of AI efficiency and human depth is more powerful than both separately. It's not about either/or. It's about both/and, but with you at the wheel.
As an entrepreneur or professional, your EVA — your humanity — is precisely what distinguishes you. It's the reason why clients choose you and not the competitor who uses the same tools. That's also precisely what distinguishes a strong brand identity.
Your experience with dozens of comparable projects. Your skill to question through to the core. Your attitude to keep developing yourself. You can't outsource that to an AI. You have to build that yourself. A bit every day.
The question isn't whether you're going to use AI. Of course you are. The question is whether alongside that you keep investing in your own EVA. Whether you keep gaining experiences that feed your intuition. Whether you keep sharpening skills. Whether you maintain the attitude to keep learning.
The future isn't human versus machine. The future is human with machine, where your EVA determines how much value that combination delivers. A[i]dam had the book. Eve had the mirror. You need both, but without self-knowledge all the knowledge in the world is no more than data.
Want to discover your EVA and convert it into a brand that sticks? In the Merkkoers trajectory you build the foundation for your business in 3 months. No endless plans. But concrete steps you can take immediately. Curious? View my approach or email [email protected].
Written by
Peter van der SteegePeter van der Steege is a brand strategist, designer and AI director. He builds brands for entrepreneurs and writes about what makes brands strong, from strategy to the role of AI and humanity. He lives and works in Groningen.
