Old Dogs, Real Tricks: What Experienced CEOs Are Forgetting in the Age of AI
In a world chasing “new tricks,” it’s the old dogs who often hold the key to solving today’s toughest business challenges.
The Real Workforce Shift No One’s Talking About
I’m sure you’re reading the headlines from tech CEOs stating the obvious: as we integrate more AI, we’ll likely begin mass layoffs of the very humans who built the businesses we rely on.
Somewhere along the way, having too many people became the opposite of progress.
The evolving myth is that to thrive in a tech-first world, you must be young, fast, digitally fluent—and operate with far fewer people.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Before we burst the bubble of the Lean AI Agent Machine of American Business, I want to touch on something more important:
“Young, fast, and digitally fluent” is not how AI will grow business.
In fact, the newest roles emerging in tech circles today are human-led roles—and many of them are filled by people with experience. Not just in tech, but in the business of your business.
💡 Amazon CEO: AI Will Lead to Job Cuts – Wall Street Journal
💡 AI and Efficiency – The Verge
💡 Companies Across America Are Cutting Workers – WSJ
Old Dogs Learning New Tricks
If you’ve ever watched British crime TV, you may have come across a gem called New Tricks. In this long-running series, three retired detectives—quirky, flawed, and deeply experienced—solve the cases that modern policing missed.
Why? Because they have what AI doesn’t:
context, memory, and wisdom.
These “old dogs” aren’t clinging to the past—they’re solving cold cases using nuance, patterns, gut instincts, and human connection. And this is the metaphor I want business leaders to pay attention to—especially as we’re flooded daily with more “let them go” news.
The Cold Case in Your Organization
In New Tricks, the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS) tackles the toughest cases—the ones no one else could crack. Sound familiar?
Every company has its own version of a “cold case”:
- The persistent customer complaint no one can fix
- The stalled product idea that no one revisits
- The untapped market that remains just out of reach
- Churn! Everybody has a churn problem.
These aren’t tech problems. They’re human puzzles.
And the clues are often standing right in front of us—wrapped up in the “outdated,” experienced employees who’ve been told they’re past their prime.
What the Old Dogs Know That AI Doesn’t
AI feels like the perfect segue to early-retire anyone over 40.
But hear me out—these old detectives from New Tricks are the perfect analogy.
Meet the Team:
- Brian: Obsessive attention to detail, recall of long-forgotten facts
- Jack: Strategic intuition, deep empathy, clarity through bureaucracy
- Gerry: Street smarts, trust networks, and a radar for what people aren’t saying
Their value isn’t in learning software. It’s in connecting the dots no one else can see—because they’ve seen the problem before. And more importantly, they’re not dazzled by the colorful data dashboards younger workers rely on.
Someone has to actually read the AI output—and know when it’s “just cool” versus when it actually gets a result.
Reskilling Isn’t a One-Way Street
We talk a lot about reskilling employees. But what’s the point of reskilling when CEOs are writing op-eds demanding “leaner and leaner” teams?
And let’s be honest—corporate America has so much bias against older workers that few imagine anyone over 35 still working in the AI era.
But what if we flipped the script?
What if we reskilled younger workers in:
- Human judgment
- Business history
- The messy nuances that don’t show up on dashboards?
Because AI can’t do that stuff. Only humans can.
“Old dogs” aren’t slow—they’re cautious. And that’s exactly what you need when AI throws 1,000 options at your team.
Intergenerational Teams Get Results
The magic of UCOS wasn’t just the individuals—it was the team.
- AI surfaces the data
- Experience asks the right questions
- Together, they solve the problem and get results
We don’t need to replace one with the other. We need to integrate them.
Are You Overlooking the “Old Dogs” in Your Business?
Does “lean and mean” translate to “young and fast” at your company?
Because here’s the reality: with AI tools, you need people who know when something feels off. That gut feeling? That’s experience amplified—and it’s a key to real innovation when paired with AI.
You don’t need a BritBox subscription to get the lesson here.
Just read your latest AI-generated report like a customer would.
Does it sound a little… off? Generic? Misaligned?
It should. Because AI can’t sound human unless a human teaches it how.
And right now, someone in your company needs to train AI to represent your brand—and your customers are still human.
Final Word: Don’t Dismiss Experience—Harness It
No matter what Forbes or The Wall Street Journal says:
You’re not behind. You’re not outdated.
Reframe experience—not as resistance, but as your company’s hidden asset.
AI can help you move faster and farther.
Only human wisdom will help you move smarter—so you can actually get a result.
🔗 Want More?
I’m fired up about AI and the workplace. Follow this blog series—I’ll be diving deeper into what experience really brings to the future of work, and how you can build intergenerational teams that crack your company’s toughest “cold cases.”
👉 Ready to explore what that looks like inside your organization? Let’s talk.
Written by the smart, and slightly irreverent—in the best way, Maria Bereket. Inspired by watching hours of BritBox. Research deep dive by Gemini. Article format tweaked by a ChatGPT agent I created (because my grammar is horrible and I love lots of spaces and bullet points.)
