Business leaders have no shortage of problems they want to solve with the current technology boom. and Deloitte’s Global human capital trends in 2026 The report, which surveyed thousands of executives and employees around the world, found that the list is long. What’s also becoming clearer is how few organizations actually have the cultural and structural foundations to get there.
But in many ways, there appears to be a wide gap between what leaders need and what they have built. This report identifies three issues at the top of the leadership agenda.
- A workforce that cannot absorb change quickly enough
- Deploying AI beyond accountability and trust
- An organizational structure built over time
Problem 1: Employees are hitting a wall of change
One-third of employees surveyed experienced 15 major organizational changes in the past year. The results are seen in happiness, workload, clarity, and engagement. Old models of managing change through temporary programs and top-down communication struggle to keep pace.
Leaders know this. 85% say it is important for organizations and employees to build the ability to continually adapt. Only 27% say their organization is responding well to change. Additionally, only 7% of companies say their companies are taking the lead in helping their employees continue to grow and adapt.
“Organizations are facing a new reality,” writes Simona Spellman, Deloitte’s U.S. human capital leader. “Change is relentless, and old strategies can’t keep up. Leaders must build adaptability into the way they work so that employees have the clarity, trust, and support to evolve with AI and changing work demands, so the human edge becomes a competitive advantage.”
What leaders here want from AI is to build support directly into work with real-time feedback, instant learning, and adaptive tools that allow people to adjust as priorities and skill requirements change.
Deloitte calls destinations “variable.” That is, it is an ongoing organizational capability rather than a managed event. The report found that the most advanced organizations have stopped treating adaptability as a program and started treating it as infrastructure.
Problem 2: AI makes decisions but is not responsible.
60% of executives use AI for decision-making, but only 5% say they are managing AI well. The adoption and governance gap is at the heart of what Deloitte calls “cultural debt.” In other words, costs accumulate as organizations scale AI without maintaining accountability structures, norms, and a framework of trust.
56% of leaders say they are designing AI for business outcomes. Only 40% design with both business and human outcomes in mind, including equity, skill development, and the daily work experience. 42% of employees say their organization does not evaluate the impact of AI on humans at all.
“The real transformation is not adding humans and machines together, but redesigning jobs with clear decision rights and trust thresholds to create exponential value by merging human and machine capabilities within the work itself,” wrote David Mallon, head of U.S. human capital research and chief futurist at Deloitte.
Organizations that intentionally design human-AI interactions, he says, “enable better outcomes and more meaningful work. Without that design, AI can create disruption and cultural debt just as quickly as it can scale productivity.”
Cultural frictions are already measurable. 65% of organizations believe that AI will require a significant change in organizational culture. 34% say their culture currently looks like this: blocking AI transformation goals.
Leaders expect AI to build trust, not undermine it. The report finds that the most advanced organizations are those that define clear decision rights around the use of AI, prioritize transparency about where and how AI is deployed, and invest in critical thinking skills that enable employees to work effectively with AI.
read more: Is your workforce plan built for a world that no longer exists?
Problem 3: Your org chart is slowing things down.
Seven out of 10 business leaders say their key competitive strategy for the next three years is to be fast and agile. Most of them run organizations organized for the opposite purpose.
The report found that traditional departments such as human resources, finance, IT, and legal were designed for efficiency and control within defined boundaries. This architecture creates silos and prevents the cross-functional collaboration needed for AI transformation. 66% of executives say these capabilities need to change. Only 7% say they are making progress toward that goal.
Leaders hope that AI will enable a more fluid operating model where expertise moves into operations rather than locked into functions, outcomes drive design rather than lines on an org chart, and learning is embedded into operations rather than offloaded to training calendars.
Human resources occupies a special position in this issue. While this is one of the legacy capabilities the report says needs to change, it’s also the perfect capability to lead a redesign. The report notes that this is the defining HR opportunity at the moment.
“The future of HR depends on its ability to support the different ways organizations operate,” writes Kyle Forrest, future HR leader at Deloitte in the US. “As work becomes more dynamic and skills-based, HR has an opportunity to lead the transition from rigid functional silos to a model where expertise is transferred to work, work is designed around outcomes, and learning is continuous rather than episodic.”
