An interview with Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg in January 2026 challenges a prevailing assumption of the AI era: that hiring elite talent alone is enough to win.
In January 2026, Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge published an interview with Boris Groysberg, exploring how organizations are responding to intense competition for artificial intelligence talent. The discussion comes at a moment when companies across sectors are paying unprecedented sums to recruit AI specialists, under pressure from investors and boards to signal competitiveness in a rapidly shifting landscape.
Groysberg’s central argument is that the real differentiator is not individual brilliance, but talent density—the proportion of highly capable people, especially in roles that directly shape competitive advantage. Organizations that improve this ratio, particularly in “critical jobs,” tend to unlock far greater productivity from AI than those that simply accumulate star hires.
A concrete example illustrates the risk of overreliance on recruitment. Groysberg points to Meta’s high-profile pursuit of elite AI researchers following its multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI. While the hires brought technical credibility and market signaling, reports of integration challenges and executive departures underscored a familiar pattern: exceptional individuals do not automatically form high-performing teams. Without deliberate team design, launch processes, and shared ways of working, even the strongest talent clusters fragment.
The interview reinforces several strategic lessons relevant to association leaders. First, talent strategy must shift from acquisition to integration, treating elite teams as mini-acquisitions that require governance and cultural alignment. Second, AI magnifies both strengths and weaknesses; strong performers become more productive, while skill gaps and poor judgement scale just as quickly. Third, smaller, more focused organizations may outperform larger ones if complementary skills are intentionally combined.
Groysberg also highlights AI’s growing role in diagnosing skills gaps and accelerating learning, allowing organizations to respond faster when roles or responsibilities change. Yet he is clear that experience, judgement, and influence cannot be automated.
As AI adoption accelerates, leadership advantage will belong less to those who hire the most famous names, and more to those who build dense, cohesive teams capable of turning capability into sustained value.
