AI adoption is often treated as a technology strategy rather than a workforce strategy, and CIOs remain unconvinced that HR is a catalyst for organizational change: 43% view its impact as moderate, and 29% as minimal. Yet 88% of HR leaders say they’re actively driving strategic change, with preparing the workforce for AI as a top priority.
Bridging this disconnect is critical for organizations aiming to secure the cross-functional talent acquisition collaboration necessary for AI-driven growth. Effective support for technology adoption, talent recruitment, and employee upskilling depends on narrowing the perception gap, especially as AI and its agents extend beyond IT and into areas such as human resources, customer care, supply chain, inventory management, marketing, and sales.
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AI’s Impact on Work and Hiring
AI is changing tasks, responsibilities, and how work gets done much faster than companies can redesign jobs or rewrite job descriptions, leaving many still hiring for yesterday’s workflows. AI is also more than another technology platform, as AI agents increasingly function like a distinct category of the workforce. This elevates talent acquisition to a strategic function directly tied to a company’s adoption and evolution of AI.
To respond, business leaders will need to shift their focus from an overemphasis on AI tools to a model that also includes workforce redesign, enabling teams to build skills and adapt to AI and its agents quickly enough to realize value. According to a Boston Consulting Group theory, only 10% of AI value creation comes from algorithms, 20% from technology and data infrastructure, and 70% from meaningful transformation of people, organizations, and processes.
CIO and CHRO: A Partnership of Shared Accountability
Because AI is largely a CIO’s responsibility, misalignment with talent acquisition teams poses risks to successful implementation and workforce development. To address this dynamic, CIOs will need to play a larger role in designing a new workforce strategy that spans business functions and worker categories, including full-time, part-time, and contingent workers, as well as AI agents.
Mutual respect matters, but the partnership also needs shared accountability. IT is often focused on technology capabilities and implementation, with success measured by deployment speed and business impact. HR can be more operational, focusing on job architecture and compensation bands, with success measured by corporate governance and workforce readiness. Acknowledging these differences and aligning on the skills, roles, and workflows that AI is changing will foster a more productive working relationship.
4 Skill Sets to Prioritize in the AI Era
To build an adaptable, AI-powered workforce, organizations need to first distinguish between AI skills within IT departments, such as those of engineers and data scientists, and AI-enabled skills across the organization. CIOs are well-versed in the former and are likely already advising talent acquisition teams on the qualifications and skills required for different roles within their departments. But identifying AI skills for roles across the entire organization will require a new way of thinking.
Here are four skill sets CIOs should keep in mind when collaborating with talent acquisition teams to build a workforce that blends AI technology with human workers and AI agents:
1. Judgment and Interpretation:
Intelligence is increasingly viewed as a commodity thanks to AI, but interpretation and judgment remain essential. The ability to find and use the right information is now more valuable than memorizing and summarizing facts. Job descriptions need to shift from listing tasks to emphasizing skills for managing AI and its outputs. For example, a help desk coordinator today will require AI operations support skills, and a customer service representative will need AI escalation and oversight capabilities.
2. Learning Agility and Initiative:
According to Gartner, CIOs are under pressure because the speed at which new skills are needed is outpacing available talent, making workforce readiness a major bottleneck. This is where individual initiative, a crucial but often overlooked skill, comes in. Employees who proactively learn about advances in AI can help their organizations adapt more quickly to change. This can include conducting research, listening to podcasts, reading articles, and attending workshops. Those who share what they’ve learned with their colleagues create an organic training and upskilling system that helps drive a dynamic AI-enabled workforce.
3. Durable Human Skills:
More than 70% of the skills employers seek today are used in both automatable and non-automatable work. This overlap means most skills remain relevant, though how and where they are applied will evolve. As AI takes over more routine tasks, including many technical ones, interpersonal skills such as communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and adaptability will become even more important. People-centric occupations in healthcare and community service will also continue to require skills such as caring, empathy, and a service mindset.
4. AI Fluency and Oversight:
Despite projections that AI will replace workers, especially at the entry level, data shows that employers are actually seeking candidates who can use AI to complement their work. These AI-fluency skills include implementing AI tools for specific tasks, crafting AI prompts that elicit high-quality outputs, and analyzing and revising those outputs. This suggests that AI is largely reshaping roles rather than replacing them, reinforcing the need to seek out candidates with the potential to learn, including curiosity and critical thinking.
Designing the Future of Work Together
To respond to these changes, CIOs and HR leaders will need to collaborate to create detailed task inventories for each department, identify the AI-related skills required for each role, and distinguish between what a human worker does and what an AI agent is responsible for. Job descriptions will need to be revamped, and new training programs will need to be created to build future-focused career paths for talent.
The good news is that nearly 90% of employees are willing to adapt to new ways of working if they trust how change is managed. By partnering with CHROs and talent acquisition teams, CIOs can help lead a practical redesign of the workforce that touches every department and creates a competitive advantage for the organization. The companies that win with AI will be the ones that redesign roles, skills, and workflows fast enough for people and AI agents to create value together.
About the Author of this Article
Katie Breault is the Chief Delivery Officer at YUPRO Placement, she advises executive teams on designing hiring models that meet the demands of today’s labor market and align with long-term business growth.
About YUPRO Placement
YUPRO Placement, is a skills-first public-benefit placement firm
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