Raising Gen Alpha: Preparing your child for an AI-powered workforce

Most of us are still figuring out what AI means for our own careers. But what does it mean for Gen Alpha and the generations to come?

In our latest webinar, we brought together experts from both industry and education to help parents think this through, not with a checklist, but with practical guidance and candid conversations. The focus was on how to support and guide children into an increasingly unknown world shaped by technology and AI.

The session was hosted by Christine Mulryne, Head of Retention and Partnerships at Flexa, who was joined by a fantastic panel:

• Sandra Collomb, Strategy, Culture and Transformation Lead at Airbus
• Louisa Spencer, Programme Success Manager at SAP
• Nahdia Khan, Chair of the Digital and Technology Industry Advisory Group for the Central London Careers Hub

Together, they got into the real stuff: what the future of work actually looks like, which skills are going to matter, and how parents can start preparing their kids now, not with pressure, but with curiosity, balance, and confidence.

This blog includes:

• Insights into how young people feel about AI
• Why language matters when speaking to children about AI
• How SAP and Airbus are supporting young people to understand AI
• The human skills that will always matter
• Questions to spark conversations with children at the dinner table

Fear or excitement? How young people really feel about AI

Recent statistics show that 53% of young people are afraid AI will take their jobs, and only 35% say they feel excited about it.

None of the panellists were particularly shocked by those statistics. Louisa pointed to the pressure young people feel from a lot of media, social media, and wider narratives around automation and AI taking jobs, combined with the traditional message they have always been given: work hard in school, get a good job, and everything will follow. When those two things collide in a teenager's head, anxiety makes complete sense.

Sandra mentioned how it could also be our own fears influencing this generation’s feelings towards AI.

"I think it's our fear that's influencing them. My kids are not at all afraid of AI. On the contrary, they're really excited. We have to change the way we influence them so they are not scared, so they are prepared, and they can then use it." Sandra, Airbus

Nahdia backed this up with something interesting from the Youth Voice Census report: the young people who are already using AI consistently feel noticeably less afraid of it. So the real question is not how we protect children from AI, but how we help them see it as something they can shape, rather than something that is just happening to them.

Language matters more than we realise

A theme that kept coming up was the language we use. Nahdia drew a clear line between two very different conversations we could be having with young people. One is about displacement, AI taking over, jobs disappearing. The other is about what people can actually do with it.

"We talk about what AI is going to do to them as opposed to what they can do with it. And that language of displacement dominates, as opposed to the language of augmentation, creativity, human advantage." Nahdia Khan

Rather than presenting AI as a looming threat, we can model curiosity instead. Explore tools together. Ask questions over dinner. Let the uncertainty feel like an interesting puzzle rather than a warning sign.

The human skills that still matter 

So what do employers actually want? Both SAP and Airbus have been rethinking this, and what came through clearly is that the focus has shifted away from specific qualifications and towards qualities that are genuinely hard to teach in a classroom. Things like problem-solving, adaptability, curiosity, and the ability to work with other people.

Nahdia pointed to three skills she thinks will define this era: ethical judgment, because someone has to take responsibility for what AI produces; contextual creativity, because AI cannot truly understand lived experience, cultural nuance, or emotional complexity; and resilience, the capacity to keep learning and adapting without shutting down when things feel uncertain.

Sandra added empathy and human judgment to the list. Even at a company the size of Airbus, with 220,000 people building some of the most sophisticated technology on the planet, she was clear that it is still, at its core, a human business.

When the panel was asked which of these skills would be hardest to automate, they all landed in the same place.

"It's a lived experience. It's something you go through yourself as well as something you offer to others. It is built on relationships and genuine human connection."  Nahdia Khan

What SAP and Airbus are doing to support Gen Alpha with AI 

It was good to hear that both SAP and Airbus are not just talking about this but actually doing something about it. SAP runs coding camps for parents and children from around age seven to fourteen. They also have a Young Thinkers programme focused on problem-solving and digital skills, as well as a student edition of their Learning Hub that gives young people real experience with enterprise technology. 

At Airbus, Sandra described a foundation that has added digital education to its existing programmes around science and engineering. There are materials available for different age groups, from primary school upwards, and a teacher pack that can be downloaded for free, which Sandra said she had used herself to onboard teachers at her children's primary school. For families and children wanting to explore further, Sandra also highlighted the Network of Words, which explains how large language models work in a child-friendly way through videos and age-appropriate content, and which she described as helping children understand what AI actually is and how it works. 

The panel was also honest about the bigger picture here. Nahdia pointed out that a third of young people had no extracurricular or volunteering opportunities last year, and that the young people least likely to access these things are those from rural areas or who qualify for free school meals. This is not just a cost issue. It is about who has the networks, the time, and the knowledge to even know these opportunities exist. Getting this right will take deliberate effort from both employers and the government, not just good intentions.

What mindset shift should parents focus on in 2026?

The closing question was a good one: if parents take away just one mindset shift from this conversation, what should it be?

Nahdia's answer was simple and worth holding onto. Stop trying to steer children towards a specific outcome, whether that is a particular university, a job title, or a career path. Instead, build the foundations that will serve them across many different careers, in a world that we genuinely cannot predict yet. Curiosity over certainty. Resilience over perfection.

Sandra brought it back to something even closer to home. Before we think about what our kids need to change, we need to look at ourselves first. Our willingness to model curiosity, sit with uncertainty, and keep the moral compass pointing in the right direction is what will shape how our children approach all of this.

Questions to spark a conversation with your children at the dinner table

You do not need to have all the answers to start a good conversation about AI with your children. The panellists shared a few questions they have tried at home.

"If you could teach a robot one thing about being a human, what would it be and why?"
This came from Louisa, who used AI to generate dinner table questions and then tried them on her own children. She noted how well it connected to everything the panel had been discussing about what makes us distinctly human.

"What is something you have seen AI get wrong recently, and how did you know it was wrong?"
Nahdia's suggestion, and a neat way to build critical thinking without it feeling like a lesson. It also opens up a conversation about the importance of questioning AI outputs rather than taking them at face value.

"If you had an AI assistant, what would you want it to do for you? And what would you always want to do yourself?"
Sandra's question, tried and tested at her own dinner table. Her son's answer was that he would never ask AI to be his friend, because he can hug his real friends. Simple, and quietly profound.

Key Takeaways

1. Watch the language you use. Talking about what children can do with AI, rather than what AI might do to them, makes a real difference to how they feel about it.
2. The most future-proof skills are human ones. Empathy, ethical judgment, contextual creativity, and resilience are genuinely hard to automate and increasingly valued by employers.
3. You do not need to be an AI expert. Asking questions like "how do you know that is true?" and "what has been left out?" at the dinner table is already building the critical thinking skills that will matter.
4. Access is an equity issue. Free resources exist, including the SAP Young Thinkers programme and Airbus school materials, but reaching the young people who need them most will require deliberate effort.
5. Prepare them for a journey, not a destination. The goal is not to optimise for one outcome but to build adaptable, curious, resilient young people who can keep learning as the world changes around them.