As AI Changes Work, CEOs Must Change How Work Happens

If the ideal AI talent strategy is a seamless mix of humans, skills, roles, and technology, most companies aren’t there yet. AI is reshaping how work gets done, but not always in the right ways. Too often, it’s deployed as a patch on top of legacy processes—a key reason why value remains elusive for many firms.

Workers are already feeling the readiness gap. GenAI will touch most tech jobs, yet many employees say they’re unprepared for the shift. What’s more, three in four employees expect AI agents to play a bigger role ahead. But only a third of those employees said they have a proper understanding of what AI agents are.

Meanwhile, executives are dealing with a gap in AI talent. The DNA of the modern business is shifting; skilled tech professionals are more critical to success than ever. But these experts are scarce: IDC estimates that, by 2026, nine in ten companies worldwide will feel this worker shortage.

This is a moment for the CEO to bring balance, collaboration, and foresight to a firm’s people strategy. “Leaders should be asking: ‘How is AI changing how we deliver on key business outcomes?’” says Vinciane Beauchene, a BCG managing director and partner. “‘Where do humans still make the difference—and what skills do we need to build and reinforce across our workforce?’”

To begin answering these questions, CEOs must set the agenda for how the organization learns to use AI—not only by training workers differently, but by building their trust in these systems. And they must go beyond deploying tools and reimagine how work itself happens: how technology reshapes delivery, performance, and the skills that power both.

As Strategy Shifts, So Must Skills

AI is turning what we know about performance upside down. In one BCG study, lower-performing employees, when assisted by AI, outperformed their unassisted human peers on creative tasks—showing that the right tools can quickly shift what “top talent” looks like.

But any shift in the mix of talent and technology can’t happen without readiness. In BCG’s AI at Work 2025 survey, only 36% of employees said they were satisfied with their AI training, even though nearly three in four are already using AI regularly. The result is a widening gap between those companies equipped to harness AI and those left behind.

“At the simplest level, there’s real uncertainty about which skills matter,” says David Martin, a BCG managing director and senior partner. Reshaping workflows with AI puts skills into continual flux. If AI takes over tasks like coding, a company needs to think about the work human software developers will do in the new process.

“Are your human workers going to handle tasks like overseeing quality control or ensuring the technology operates without bias?” says Martin. “Where are they most useful, how do they use the time saved, and what should their training on these skills look like?”

Legacy ways of defining talent also can’t keep up with AI’s speed. “The pace of AI’s evolution makes it more important than ever to identify and assess the skills that will matter most—and to do so continuously,” says Beauchene. “Building that muscle will determine which companies stay ahead.”

The rise of autonomous AI agents complicates things further; few leaders know how to prepare people to work alongside them.

Amid these changes, leaders are starting to rethink how to define roles. “We’re seeing some executives pinpoint a few core human competencies for most roles—critical thinking, creativity, and self-driven learning,” says Martin. “There’s something deeply valuable about a digital-first mindset, with its intolerance for doing things the old way.”

The DNA of Change: Building a Digital Workforce

For leaders, AI readiness goes beyond redefining the skills individual workers need to succeed.

“A CEO needs to think about meaningful shifts and questions on the larger team level, since the company-wide mix of your talent—its DNA—is going to change,” says Beauchene.

One big shift: the shape of the talent pyramid, both within functions and across the enterprise. Traditionally, it has included a broad base of entry-level employees, a narrower band of managers, and a small group of senior experts at the top. As organizations invest in upskilling junior software developers and bringing in a few highly specialized senior experts, the pyramid within tech roles begins to look different, with the middle layer evolving from oversight to coaching and integration.

At the same time, digital capability is spreading across sales, marketing, and operations, changing how teams collaborate and create value.

Yet as skills spread across the enterprise, demand for them is rising even faster. The result: growing pressure on workforce planning and sourcing. The shortage of AI and digital experts is only adding pressure; Workday predicts that 4.3 million tech jobs will remain unfilled by 2030. Even companies that once found it easy to attract talent are now rethinking how they develop and retain critical skills internally.

Despite a cooler job market, competition for elite digital talent remains intense. “Being an industry-leading brand used to be enough [for a company] to attract thousands of applicants. But when it comes to digital experts, who might prefer to work at a Google, that won’t work anymore,” says Orsolya Kovács-Ondrejkovic, a BCG partner and associate director. “To attract these professionals, the C-suite must understand what this new talent wants. They want flexibility and work life balance, and they want to work on cool things. They care more about these factors than your brand.”

For CEOs, that means treating these specialists less as a homogenous talent pool and more as a scarce, mobile segment of the workforce. Businesses can still attract them by offering the same things that lift internal engagement: meaningful work, flexibility, and clear learning paths.

Four Ways CEOs Can Close the AI Talent Gap

For CEOs, closing the talent gap will require action on several fronts.

Build a talent alliance at the top. AI’s impact on work cuts across every function, which means CEOs can’t tackle the talent gap alone. “There’s probably never been a more exciting or difficult time to be a CHRO,” says Martin. “The same goes for CIOs and legal, too. When it comes to influencing talent strategy, these roles are now wearing two hats.”

These leaders are responsible for supporting the enterprise through massive transformation. But they’re also expected to drive change within their own function. This creates pressure to do more with less—and do it faster.

“The good news is that roles like the CHRO have never been more recognized and valued as partners,” says Martin. “CEOs should remember the huge impact these executives have on culture and trust.”

It’s an alliance system that can help facilitate upskilling programs—the bigger, the better. When CEOs tap this alliance early, it becomes the backbone for enterprise-wide learning and reskilling. These partnerships create the conditions for what comes next: the large-scale upskilling efforts that will truly narrow the talent gap.

Grow the talent pool with expansive upskilling programs. Going big with training resources is no easy effort for a business. But a CEO should commit the firm to upskilling and reskilling workers across all functions, not just technical ones. Plenty of creative training scenarios are available: for example, warehouse workers can receive live training on data analytics by joining actual data teams elsewhere in the company for a set period. The most proficient become candidates for full-time roles.

“It's a big mindset shift—both for employees stepping into new roles and for the managers welcoming these newly trained tech professionals,” says Kovács-Ondrejkovic. “A manager of an IT team might think, ‘I’d rather hire a software developer from the market,’ but thinking that way means missing out on a valuable source of talent.”

The change in mindset—from talent hoarding to talent sharing—requires a leap of faith. Embracing “alternatively skilled” candidates can feel like an operational risk to some. CEOs must champion this change by reassuring the organization that the risk is worth taking. When they do, managers become far more invested in a culture of learning and growth that benefits everyone.

Help strengthen the broader learning ecosystem. The burden of building AI skills in the workforce isn’t only on the corporate sector. Academic and government circles must also step up. “Governments spend roughly four or five percent of their GDP on education in the first 20 years of people's lives,” Kovács-Ondrejkovic observes. For the remaining 50 years, though, the average government spending on education is often a mere fraction of GDP. ¹ 1 National Center for Education Statistics

As public figures, CEOs have the visibility, and the responsibility, to advocate for stronger education systems and lifelong learning. The private sector can’t carry the reskilling burden alone; lasting progress will come when business, academia, and government move in step to build the workforce of the future.

Lead with transparency and vision. Reskilling initiatives and AI adoption succeed when employees understand the “why” behind them.

“As CEO, clearly communicating your AI vision to the business is absolutely vital for maintaining culture, retaining top talent, and easing organizational fear,” says Martin. “For one, executive assurance around AI will keep high-performing employees engaged in the strategy.”

Leaders who are open about how AI will change work—and what it means for individual roles—help employees see opportunity rather than threat. That clarity builds trust, which may be the most valuable skill currency of all.

The CEOs who get this right won’t just hire for today’s needs. They’ll start with a clear view of how their business and ways of working will evolve in an AI-driven world—and then build a talent strategy to match. That means rethinking roles, broadening skills, and fostering a culture where people can experiment, learn, and lead in new ways. These steps help a firm shape the workforce that will lead the next chapter of growth.