AI, and specifically agentic AI, current a chance to rethink the character of labor, reshaping groups and blurring the road between expertise and expertise management. On this new world of human-to-agent interplay, CIOs ought to companion with chief HR officers (CHROs) to collectively form enterprise expertise methods and hold the hybrid workforce in line with present and future wants.
AI’s fast-paced evolution could make it troublesome to remain abreast of adjusting abilities necessities. In accordance with PwC’s Might 2025 Pulse Survey, 40% of tech leaders rank the tempo of expertise innovation as a top-three barrier to delivering on their tech methods. Expertise and abilities shortages are a significant hurdle, cited by 38% of respondents. Adapting worker abilities to new roles is especially problematic for realizing worth from AI brokers, in keeping with 29% of respondents to PwC’s AI Agent survey.
Earlier waves of technological change (cloud modernization, for instance) required CIOs to domesticate new IT structure and technical abilities. However the AI period is way extra advanced. CIOs are dealing with a soup-to-nuts recasting of each technical and gentle abilities along with conventional roles and new human-to-agent interactions. This creates a paradigm shift that requires shut alignment with HR.
The scope of what’s required isn’t misplaced on IT management: confidence of their means to construct a expertise pipeline for future abilities.
This useful resource hole threatens the power to scale AI and the potential for measurable enterprise worth. “This isn’t nearly IT expertise — that is end-to-end expertise transformation,” notes Dan Priest, PwC’s chief AI officer.
Retooling the expertise pipeline
Working collectively, IT and HR leaders can handle expertise pipeline deficiencies, outline evolving AI abilities wants, and reorient departments to reap the benefits of this new hybrid workforce. Their shared agenda ought to embody:
Redefining office construction. CIOs and CHROs ought to work collectively to reimage groups that assist the optimum mixture of human expertise and brokers whereas defining duties and processes that ought to be automated and people requiring human-in-the-loop intervention. The collaboration must also yield a brand new expertise structure that features revised hiring, efficiency administration, and compensation methods.
Overview your organizational mannequin. Company construction can also be on the desk. Most firms are at present oriented round a requirements tradition, which inspires folks to comply with agreed upon enterprise practices and workflows. The accelerated tempo of AI expertise requires an organizational mannequin designed to maneuver on the pace of innovation. “Most firms are nonetheless struggling to get worth from this expertise by cultivating the appropriate expertise and specializing in the appropriate engineering issues to do large issues,” notes Priest. “There must be a shift from requirements tradition to innovation tradition, and most firms aren’t constructed to tackle any of that.”
Upskilling the workforce. Creating an AI-ready workforce entails greater than educating staff new AI prompting or vibe coding abilities. Folks at each degree ought to embrace a studying and reskilling mentality, bolstered via IT, HR, and govt management.
PwC recommends govt management commit between 10 to twenty hours to hands-on work with AI, together with constructing brokers and leveraging giant language fashions (LLMs) for normal enterprise use. These in additional technical roles ought to dedicate between 20 to 50 hours to hands-on orientation. “It’s important to make sure that everybody is aware of what AI is at a baseline degree, and people driving the change need to be proficient at a technical degree,” says Cenk Ozdemir, CIO Advisory Lead and International Tech Progress Chief for PwC Advisory.
Domesticate technical and gentle abilities. Whereas new technical abilities are important, gentle abilities assist drive AI change administration and adoption. Enterprise orientation provides staff a eager understanding of how the enterprise operates and helps determine the place AI can drive higher outcomes. As well as, there are new AI-related alternatives that require non-technical abilities in areas like vital considering and compliance — for instance, AI orchestrator.
“The expertise mannequin can have a seismic shift, and we’ll see extra roles doing various things in numerous methods,” says Danielle Phaneuf, companion, PwC Company Know-how Technique. “AI isn’t a alternative for human expertise; it’s a pressure multiplier for a way organizations work.”
Encourage experimentation and steady studying. AI is consistently evolving, which implies steady studying and upskilling is vital. Together with the usual coaching courseware, organizations ought to get inventive with upskilling, instituting experiences that gamify the method and promote a tradition of innovation. One giant business actual property firm is utilizing prompt-a-thons and immediate marketplaces to democratize use of generative AI. “It’s serving to drive engagement — greater than 70% of staff at the moment are utilizing AI assistants,” mentioned the expertise and innovation chief.
The underside line
With a lot driving on AI transformation, firms ought to be strategic about empowering new work patterns. The CIO/CHRO partnership will likely be a necessary pressure for reshaping the workforce to thrive within the new period.
To study extra, go to AI brokers for IT: PwC
