Ratskinner
Adventurer
But he did say "stuff like movement combat and casting spells" (my emphasis), and he also talked about the GM making "lots of calls and judgments". Given that the ability check as a basic tool for GM calls and judgements goes back at least to B/X, it would be pretty odd not to see it mentioned.
hmmm...It could be that the game will move away from such things being character-centered, and make them adventure-centered. I seem to recall plenty of olden-days adventures (and even monsters) would have a rule written in their description like "Two characters with a combined Strength of 25 or more can push the stone." I seem to recall a designer talking about moving away from strictly codified skill difficulties, and this would be a step in that direction.