Industry 5.0 Graduate Attributes and Employee Ambidexterity among Malaysian Fresh Graduates: The Role of AI Usage Intensity

Industry 5.0 emphasizes on human-centred collaboration between workers and smart technologies due to increasing penetration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While the Industry 5.0 Graduate Attributes Framework presented by O'Dea et al. (2025) lack of empirical evidence, but it has been identified that conceptual, technological and social skills are a minimum core set of competencies likely needed in future workplaces. Specifically, this study explores the relationship of Industry 5.0 graduate attributes on employee ambidexterity and further investigates the moderating effect of AI usage intensity among employed Malaysian fresh graduates. It involved a quantitative cross-sectional survey of 167 employed graduates who graduated for two years or less. Data were analysed with IBM SPSS Statistics Version 29 through descriptive, reliability, correlation, multiple regression and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The findings reveal that conceptual skills, technological skills, and social skills exert a noteworthy and favorable effect on employee ambidexterity, with social skills being the most potent predictor. On the contrary, AI usage intensity did not positively moderate the relationships between Industry 5.0 graduate attributes and employee ambidexterity. Rather, strong moderation effects were found on conceptual skills and social skills (negative) whilst no moderating effect was present for technological skills. These results validate the Industry 5.0 Graduate Attributes Framework with empirical evidence and corroborate that in an AI-enabled workplace, the importance of individual competencies remains pertinent to enhancing employee ambidexterity.

Industry 5.0; Graduate Attributes; Employee Ambidexterity; Artificial Intelligence; AI Usage Intensity; Fresh Graduates; SPSS; Empirical Study

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