There’s a concept gaining serious traction in enterprise circles: the “superworker.” The idea is that AI doesn’t replace employees — it supercharges them. Research from The Josh Bersin Company found that AI boosts individual productivity anywhere from 30% to 400%, with human-AI collaboration doubling output across industries. (1) Those are staggering numbers, and I believe them in the right context.
The digital twin framing takes this further — a virtual replica of your work patterns, decisions, and outputs, running in parallel to optimize and predict. Some manufacturing environments using AI and digital twins have seen productivity gains of 60% or more alongside significant reductions in waste. (2) Sounds incredible. And it is, with the right guardrails.
The Part That Should Give You Pause
Here’s what gets glossed over in the superworker narrative: only about one in three employees currently have the skills needed to function effectively as a superworker. (3) That means two-thirds of your workforce — right now — aren’t ready. Not because they’re not smart or capable. Because the reskilling hasn’t happened yet.
And then there’s the governance piece. Digital twins that track employee behavior raise serious questions: who owns that data? What happens when the model makes a wrong prediction and it affects someone’s pay, promotion, or workload? When a system acts on your behalf after hours, is that you or the company? (4)
What I’ve Seen Work
The superworker model is real — I’ve seen it play out in analytics and data science environments where AI handles the repetitive modeling work and humans focus on interpretation, strategy, and stakeholder communication. The productivity gains are genuine. But the organizations that get it right treat it as a workforce redesign problem, not just a technology deployment.
The question isn’t “can we make our people 4x more productive with AI?” It’s “are we investing in the human side of that equation at the same rate we’re investing in the technology?” If the answer is no, you’re not building superworkers. You’re just adding pressure.
References
(1) Josh Bersin Company — The Rise of the Superworker (January 2025) — https://joshbersin.com/2025/01/the-rise-of-the-superworker-delivering-on-the-promise-of-ai/
(2) Simio — How Digital Twins Transform Business in 2025 — https://www.simio.com/blog/how-will-digital-twins-software-transform-your-business-in-2025
(3) SHL — Empowering the Superworker: Unlocking Critical Skills in an AI Era — https://www.shl.com/resources/by-type/blog/2025/empowering-the-superworker-unlocking-critical-skills-in-an-ai-era/
(4) Prism News — Digital Twins Promise Productivity, But Workplace AI Raises Legal Risks — https://www.prismnews.com/news/digital-twins-promise-productivity-but-workplace-ai-raises
