The Three Pressures CHROs Must Address to Support AI Transformation

Early in my career, I learned that getting scrappy can lead to finding solutions for most business problems. For me, the first step is always the same: Name the pressure getting in the way. There is always another lever to pull or another way to get creative if you know what is blocking your progress, and you put the effort and energy into really understanding it.

That’s what makes AI so challenging, especially for senior HR leaders. With so many competing pressures and ambitions surrounding AI, it can feel almost impossible to know where to begin. HR teams are already in the trenches, exploring how AI can transform the everyday job of supporting employees, managing talent, and delivering critical HR services. At the same time, senior HR leaders are being asked to define what an AI-enabled workforce should look like and to build the capabilities required to make it a reality while balancing the needs and expectations of stakeholders across the organization.

So where do HR teams start with AI? 

In this article, I want to start by naming the pressures that have emerged in some of my conversations with CHROs and sharing some key insights from our recent research to serve as groundwork for building the capacity organizations need to thrive today.

Pressure #1: Delivering the AI Dividend

Boards and executive teams want to know when AI spending will produce measurable business value. That return, the AI dividend, has become a central concern for CHROs.

One thing I’ve noticed over the past year is how much the conversation has changed. Not long ago, leaders were asking, “What are we doing with AI?” Today, they’re asking a much harder question: “What value is it creating?”  The early assumption of “deploy, train, and productivity will follow adoption” is weakening, and boards want to understand where AI is materially changing how work gets done.

And it’s clear from my conversations that this issue is not prevalent for lack of experimentation—I have heard about many innovative use cases and equally creative adoption programs—yet many leaders are still struggling to connect that work to the outcomes. Meanwhile, boards and CEOs are becoming increasingly impatient with open-ended experimentation and want more clearly defined value pathways for AI.

Are we thinking about value too broadly?

One key signal we’ve surfaced in our research is that much of this experimentation remains horizontal, as organizations roll out general-purpose tools across the enterprise rather than focusing on redesigning a specific workflow. While that is a great way to expose the entire organization to AI and allow employees to gain comfort with the tools, I encourage CHROs to question whether these efforts leave opportunities for true work reconfiguration to the side. A particular question I come back to in my own work is this: “Where might narrower use cases make it easier to redesign the workflow and measure whether the change creates value?”

Pressure #2: Unlocking Better Productivity

One of the biggest pressures CHROs are facing around AI is coming from leaders who are looking to HR to help them deliver more reliable AI-enabled output from their business units. However, as we have seen with other major technological innovations, adoption alone rarely produces immediate gains. This familiar pattern is sometimes referred to as the J-curve of technological adoption, in which organizations see a temporary decline in performance after adopting a new technology.

Do we have the wrong tech, or are we just in transition?

Too often, organizations interpret that early productivity dip as evidence that AI isn’t working, when they’re actually experiencing the natural cost of organizational adaptation. One of the first questions I’d encourage CHROs to ask is whether productivity challenges reflect a technology problem or a transition problem. Is the tool a poor fit for the work? Or do teams need clearer processes, better training, more specific role expectations, or more time to adapt?

Pressure #3: Keeping the Workforce Stable Through Change

Nearly every conversation I have with CHROs about AI eventually turns from the technology to the people who must make it work: managers and employees.

While this shouldn’t be a complete shock, this is HUMAN resources we are talking about! The level of anxiety HR leaders have expressed around workforce stability and the transition to AI-enabled work is truly concerning. On one hand, you have managers who are expected to implement new ways of working on their teams and deliver results. On the other hand, individual contributors who are being asked to adapt to changing roles are wondering what AI means for their careers and job security. Adding to this pressure, executives are pressing for faster returns from AI investments. It’s a perfect recipe for tension.

The available research points to a confidence gap. More than half of employees say they worry about how AI will be used at work, while fewer than one-third of individual contributors say they are enthusiastic about AI adoption. Nearly half of managers favor a more cautious approach, compared with 28 percent of senior leaders. Those findings reinforce something many CHROs are already experiencing firsthand: The urgency leaders feel at the top of the organization isn’t always matched by the confidence people feel throughout the rest of the organization.

Are we moving too fast for managers and individual contributors?

One assessment I’d encourage CHROs to make is whether the organization is building confidence at the same pace it’s building AI capability. In our research, we’ve found that the organizations making the most progress aren’t necessarily moving more slowly, but they’re spending more time helping managers develop the capacity to execute and communicate change and giving employees a clearer understanding of how work will evolve. The companies really thriving in AI transformation are creating enough confidence in their AI strategy that people are willing to move with the business instead of resisting it.

Bottom Line: AI Disruption Is Exposing the Need for Workforce Adaptability

It can be tempting to think of these pressures as three separate AI challenges. In reality, they are all symptoms of the same underlying shift: Organizations are trying to adapt at a faster pace than their workforce was designed to accommodate. As AI continues to reshape work faster than organizations can redesign work and talent systems, workforce adaptability will become one of the defining capabilities of modern HR.

Four capabilities every AI-ready workforce needs

In our recent research, we’ve focused on four essential capabilities to transition the workforce out of this frustrating phase and into a future where AI can address the layers of needs CHROs are being tasked with:

1. Work reconfiguration
2. Talent flow
3. Manager capacity
4. Workforce confidence

Together, these capabilities enable a workforce that can evolve in alignment with business needs.

If you are interested in learning more about our newest research signals on navigating AI adoption and the overall mission to build stronger workforce adaptability, I encourage you to join us at our upcoming HR Leadership Accelerator on September 24. These experiences will focus on sharing our latest insights on workforce adaptability and are designed to facilitate collaboration and co-solutioning with peers to bring forward concrete ways for HR leaders to succeed in this disruptive era.