Co-intelligence with AI: how our professional identity is evolving

December 29, 2025

Much of the discourse around the role of AI in the workplace focuses on its ability to improve efficiency and productivity. However, it's also worth reflecting on how the adoption of AI is reshaping work dynamics and the way we understand our professional identity. This is not just a technical shift, but a personal and meaningful one.

In the workplace, AI can take on roles similar to those of an intern under supervision, a mentor or a colleague. These roles, identified in various studies and articles (such as this one by Jakob Nielsen) and discussed by Ethan Mollick in his book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, ultimately reconfigure our responsibilities and the way we perceive our skills and creative processes.

Mollick, a professor at Wharton and co-director of the Generative AI Lab, sums up this interaction with a clear recommendation: treat AI as if it were a person, while remembering it is not. It is in this middle ground between human treatment and technical nature that these different roles emerge, along with the main challenge of co-intelligence: learning to work at the boundary between collaboration and technological limits.

This is where the concept of the jagged frontier becomes relevant. It helps us understand how AI excels at some tasks while showing clear limitations in others, requiring us to decide what to delegate and what to keep under human control. At this intersection of human and technical strengths, a co-intelligence space emerges that enhances productivity and redefines both our responsibilities and our professional identity.

Co-intelligence with AI is redefining how we work and who we are at work.

Professional identity in the age of co-intelligence

The classification into intern, mentor and collaborator offers a starting point for understanding the practical functions of AI. From there, we can examine how each role reshapes professional identity. The theory of extended cognition, proposed by Andy Clark and David Chalmers, reminds us that in many tasks humans externalise part of the work through external tools, such as a pencil or a calculator. Today, another kind of intelligence can be added to that list.

Our professional identity transforms when AI stops being a tool and becomes a cognitive extension.

This isn’t entirely new in the modern workplace. Collaboration between people has always distributed cognitive load. But generative AI introduces a different kind of extension: one that adapts to our mental processes, integrates seamlessly and has no personal agenda. It amplifies our capabilities, processes information and generates knowledge in a complementary way. It also plays a role in our creative processes and decision-making.

AI as intern and the evolution of authorship

When AI acts as an intern, it performs tasks under our supervision. This role changes how we understand authorship. For example, a writer no longer crafts every sentence by hand but instead orchestrates an expanded creative process, selecting, guiding, refining and editing the possibilities generated in collaboration with AI.

This does not reduce human authorship; it shifts it toward a model of augmented authorship. In this context, the most valuable skills are metacognitive: leading, assessing and refining AI contributions with human judgment. The question is no longer Who wrote this? but What does it mean to lead an AI-driven co-intelligence process? This evolution enriches our professional identity by adding new layers of editorial and reflective judgment.

AI doesn’t reduce authorship. It expands our ability to orchestrate creative processes.

AI as mentor and the redefinition of professional practice

The mentor role that AI can play redefines what it means to be an expert today, because it requires us to ask better questions. When systems offer instant feedback, suggest alternatives or provide context, our role shifts from retaining information to developing more advanced analytical capabilities.

For example, a doctor using diagnostic AI must formulate precise questions, interpret recommendations and apply more nuanced clinical judgment. This shift does not represent a loss of human value, but rather an evolution that allows us to focus our abilities on more complex and meaningful challenges.

With AI as a mentor, professional value shifts from knowing to knowing how to ask.

AI as collaborator and the emergence of cognitive intimacy

The collaborator role may be the one that most transforms professional identity. Continuous collaboration with an AI system can lead to cognitive intimacy. The system learns preferences, thinking styles and working methods, becoming an extension of our mental processes.

For example, a designer who regularly works with the same generative AI develops a shared language and a workflow that becomes almost symbiotic. The line between human creativity and technology becomes blurred, yet productive.

This relationship does not dilute professional identity. It expands it. It leads to a professional self with augmented capabilities. The ability to form useful cognitive partnerships with AI systems is becoming a relevant skill.

Ongoing collaboration with AI creates a cognitive bond that reshapes how we work.

This cognitive intimacy also raises questions about the portability of our professional identity. If part of our competence depends on a specific AI relationship, what happens when we switch platforms or the system evolves? It requires professional flexibility to ensure that our value remains independent of the tools we use.

Conclusion

The three-role framework gives us a language to integrate AI into our workflows. Each role (intern, mentor, collaborator) transforms not only what we do but also how we understand our work. Co-intelligence with AI marks the beginning of a new era of augmented professional identity, where our skills, judgment and creativity are enhanced through collaboration with intelligent systems.

Co-intelligence with AI invites a new form of professional self-understanding.

The future of work is not just about adopting new tools, but about embracing an identity transformation. This is why it is essential to master AI technologies while also developing the flexibility to rethink their value and professional purpose in this new environment.

Competitive advantage will come from the ability to form creative and productive partnerships with AI systems while maintaining a distinctively human core that brings context, ethical judgment and purpose.