The competency speed gap: How Artificial Intelligence outpaces HR Generalists’ capability development

Lamper, Ágnes (2026) The competency speed gap: How Artificial Intelligence outpaces HR Generalists’ capability development. In: Interdisciplinary Approaches to addressing the Opportunities and Challenges posed by Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence publication in progress. Budapesti Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (BGE), Budapest, pp. 47-62. ISBN 9786156886309

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Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence into human resource management practices has created an unprecedented temporal mismatch between the accelerating pace of competency obsolescence and the relatively fixed speed of traditional professional development mechanisms. This paper introduces the competency speed gap framework, a conceptual model that positions competency transformation as a temporal phenomenon, in which AI-induced obsolescence outpaces the ability of organizational learning systems to develop new capabilities among HR generalists. Drawing on the established theory of competency development and recent evidence on AI integration in HR functions, the goal of this paper is to propose a framework based on the summary of recent literature on the subject. The framework highlights the tendency of an exponentially growing distance: the phenomenon of structural asymmetry occurring between technology-driven and human learning cycles, as well as the multi-level impact of AI across individual, organizational, and systemic dimensions. The four theoretical predictions presented here address the topics of competency polarization, task-level transformation, hybrid collaboration models, and the primacy of organizational enablers. The paper concludes with six testable propositions that provide a basis for future quantitative research exploring the organizational conditions under which the competency speed gap tends to widen or narrow. This research adds a temporal perspective to recent degradation of skills, and emphasizes that the challenge is not a static skills gap but rather a dynamic speed difference that requires a basic reconsideration of organizational learning cycles, the infrastructure for professional development, and HR education.

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