Skip to main content

People Readiness Report 2026

Workforce readiness is the competitive
advantage in the age of AI

Download the report

Agentic AI is already causing workforce disruption. Are today’s leaders ready?

Why AI readiness starts with people, not platforms

There’s a growing gap between AI ambition and AI execution

In the past year, enterprise AI adoption increased dramatically as organizations embedded AI into core business processes, redesigned workflows and expanded deployment across their businesses. Yet while AI adoption accelerated, workforce readiness moved in the opposite direction.

The challenge is no longer whether organizations can deploy AI, it’s whether they can prepare their workforce and build the trust needed to unlock AI’s full value.

Based on the insights of 1,100 business and technology leaders in 8 countries and across 6 priority industries, the 2026 Kyndryl People Readiness Report explores why workforce readiness has become one of the most important factors determining AI success — and what leading organizations are doing differently.

AI is no longer a future initiative.

For many organizations, it’s already part of how work gets done.

More than half of organizations say AI is a key driver of how they compete or an important competitive advantage, and 77% have already scaled generative AI capabilities across multiple functions. But as adoption accelerates, expectations are rising just as quickly.

Leaders face growing pressure to demonstrate ROI, and many worry their organizations are not adapting fast enough to keep pace with AI-driven change

The challenge is no longer whether organizations can deploy AI— it's whether they can prepare their workforce to realize its full value.

say AI is embedded in core business processes or deployed broadly; in 2025, 35% said AI was fully integrated across their organizations

say they have defined and clearly communicated their AI strategy.

have achieved at least one of their top two AI objectives.

Workforce readiness: the biggest obstacle to success?

Organizations recognize that AI will require new skills, new roles and new ways of working. In fact, nearly all leaders believe upskilling employees will be more effective than hiring externally to meet AI talent needs, and more than half have already begun redesigning roles across their organizations.

Yet, less than a third have fully established change management programs to guide that transition. As AI adoption accelerates, the gap between workforce needs and workforce readiness is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The challenge is no longer identifying the need for change. It's executing it at scale.

say their workforce is fully ready for AI.

say finding employees with the right AI skills has become more difficult in the past 12 months.

say skills and talent gaps are a top barrier to AI success, second only to security concerns (52%).

Redesigning work for the AI era

The organizations making the most progress are not simply deploying AI— they are redesigning how work gets done. While many leaders say AI has not yet significantly changed day-to-day work, organizations are already restructuring roles and rethinking how people and AI collaborate.

The future of work is becoming less about replacing people and more about helping people work differently.

The next phase of AI will not be won by technology alone. It will be won by organizations that build workforce readiness, earn employee trust and redesign work so people and AI can achieve what once seemed impossible.

have already redesigned roles within or across functions.

are creating entirely new roles focused on AI management.

believe AI will make upskilling existing employees preferable to hiring externally.

Autonomy is advancing faster than trust

Organizations are giving AI more autonomy and decision-making authority than ever before. Many have already given AI access to core systems and expect autonomous agents to make business-critical decisions within the next year. But surprisingly, only a quarter completely trust AI systems operating without human oversight.

As autonomy grows, governance, accountability and workforce trust are becoming strategic business capabilities.

expect autonomous AI agents to make decisions with material business impact within the next 12 months.

completely trust AI systems operating without human oversight.

have given AI autonomous read and write access to core systems of record.

What Pacesetters do differently

A small group of organizations is breaking away from the pack. What sets them apart isn’t what they're trying to achieve — it's how they’re doing it.

Those investing in people are significantly more likely to achieve innovation, revenue growth and other high-value outcomes from AI.

These Pacesetters are closing the gap between AI adoption and outcomes by redesigning work, investing in workforce development, implementing change management and building governance frameworks that help employees trust and adopt AI more effectively. Their experience offers a blueprint for organizations seeking to close the gap between AI investment and business value.

Methodology

The Kyndryl People Readiness Report surveyed 1,100 business and technology leaders across eight countries to uncover how organizations are managing the pace of change related to AI and continuous technological innovation. Respondents included senior business and technology leaders from the banking and financial services, insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications, healthcare, and energy and utilities industries. The survey was conducted by Edelman Intelligence on behalf of Kyndryl. Fieldwork was conducted via online survey and telephone interview between March 24 and April 30, 2026.


C-Suite business leaders (CEOs, CFOs), C-Suite tech leaders (CIOs, CTOs), Senior Directors and Business Unit Leaders


countries (Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, United States)

People Readiness Report 2026

The next phase of AI transformation will not be defined by technology alone. Discover how leading organizations are redesigning work, preparing their workforce and building trust to unlock greater value from AI.

Download the report