The OECD High Performing Systems for Tomorrow initiative is developing new thinking on the purposes of education and the implications for policy and practice. The emerging conclusion is that education should in future support a broad view of human flourishing, enabling all young people to thrive in life and work. The rapid and dramatic emergence of new forms of artificial intelligence, performing many of the tasks that humans perform, requires both a bolder account of what human flourishing consists of and new thinking on education’s role in its achievement. In conversation with Enrique Tames, Michael Stevenson, who has led the OECD work, will talk about the implications for competencies, teaching and learning, for the evolution of the profession and for system design (at national and local level).