Verification Is the New Scarce Skill
As AI handles generation, human value shifts to checking outputs—not creating them.
Here's a question nobody's asking:
Who checks the AI's work?
Everyone's racing to generate more. More content. More code. More analysis. More emails. More everything.
But generation just became free. What's still expensive is knowing whether the output is actually good.
The 10-80-10 Rule
Here's how work breaks down in the AI age:
10% — You define the task. Context. Goals. Constraints.
80% — AI does the execution. Research. Writing. Analysis. First drafts.
10% — You verify the output. Is it right? Is it good? Does it fit?
That last 10% is where human judgment lives.
And it's about to become the most valuable skill you have.
Why This Matters
Generation skills are depreciating fast.
- Writing a first draft? AI does it in seconds.
- Researching a topic? AI summarizes 50 sources instantly.
- Analyzing data? AI spots patterns you'd miss.
- Creating code? AI ships features overnight.
These were once valuable skills. Now they're table stakes.
What AI can't do reliably: Know if the output is actually correct. Know if it fits your context. Know if it's good enough to ship.
That requires expertise. Judgment. Taste.
That requires verification.
The Junior Problem
This has brutal implications for early careers.
Junior roles were traditionally training grounds. You learned by doing:
- Writing reports that got edited
- Building features that got reviewed
- Creating analyses that got challenged
The feedback loop taught you what "good" looks like.
Now AI handles the generation. The junior's job becomes... what exactly?
Companies that don't figure this out will have a verification crisis in 5 years. A generation of workers who can prompt AI but can't tell if the output is garbage.
The Expert Advantage
The flip side: experts become more valuable, not less.
Why? Because verification requires knowing what right looks like.
A senior developer can smell bad AI code instantly. A veteran marketer knows when copy doesn't land. An experienced analyst catches flawed assumptions in seconds.
This expertise took years to build. AI can't shortcut it.
The people who spent decades learning their craft? They're the quality gatekeepers now. The ones who can verify what AI produces.
Work Slop at Scale
Organizations that don't build verification skills explicitly will produce work slop at scale.
What's work slop?
- Reports that sound smart but say nothing
- Code that runs but breaks in production
- Marketing that's grammatically perfect but converts nobody
- Analysis that's technically correct but misses the point
AI makes it trivially easy to produce massive quantities of mediocre work.
Without verification skills, you won't even notice it's mediocre.
What Good Verification Looks Like
Verification isn't just proofreading. It's a skill set:
Domain verification: Does this match reality? Are the facts correct? Does this align with how our industry actually works?
Quality verification: Is this good enough to ship? Would I put my name on it? Does it meet our standards?
Context verification: Does this fit our specific situation? Does it account for things the AI couldn't know?
Strategic verification: Does this serve our actual goals? Or is it technically correct but strategically wrong?
Most people stop at "did the AI follow my instructions?"
That's the lowest bar. The valuable work happens after.
How to Build This Skill
1. Always check AI outputs against your expertise. Don't accept things that "sound right." Verify they ARE right. Build the habit of skepticism.
2. Document what "good" looks like in your domain. Create checklists. Define standards. Make verification systematic, not intuitive.
3. Practice catching errors. Deliberately look for what's wrong, not what's right. Train your eye for subtle failures.
4. Stay deep in your field. Verification requires expertise. The more you know, the more you can verify. Don't let AI make you lazy about learning.
5. Create verification workflows. Don't rely on memory. Build processes that catch issues before they ship.
The Real Competitive Advantage
In 2 years, everyone will have AI generating content, code, and analysis.
The winners won't be those who generate the most.
They'll be those who verify the best.
Organizations that build verification into their culture—who treat "checking AI's work" as a critical skill, not an afterthought—will produce quality while their competitors drown in slop.
Where AskMojo Fits
This is why we build playbooks, not just prompts.
A playbook isn't just "generate this for me." It's a complete workflow:
- Define the task clearly (10%)
- Let AI execute (80%)
- Verify with built-in quality checks (10%)
We're building verification into the process itself. Checklists. Checkpoints. Domain-specific checks. So you don't have to remember what to verify—the system reminds you.
Because the future isn't about generating more.
It's about knowing what's actually good.
The Question to Ask Yourself
Look at what AI is generating for you right now.
How confident are you that it's correct?
Not "sounds right." Actually correct. Factually accurate. Strategically appropriate. Good enough to stake your reputation on.
If you hesitated, that's your skill gap.
And it's worth closing before everyone else figures this out.
Building in public means sharing the insights, not just the product. Follow along at @askmojoai