Report: AI May Be Eroding the Very Skills Employers Need Most
AI is changing which human capabilities matter most at work, yet employees are reporting that some of those same capabilities are being eroded, according to a new IBM study. Critical thinking, judgment and the ability to evaluate AI output sit at the center of that tension.
The IBM Institute for Business Value study, “Designing the Thinking Organization,” is based on two surveys conducted with Oxford Economics from April through June 2026. IBM surveyed 1,500 CHROs and senior executives responsible for workforce strategy across 21 geographies and 23 industries, along with 8,800 full-time employees across 28 countries.
The chart below, created by ChatGPT from IBM’s data, summarizes the executive-employee differences around critical thinking and AI oversight along with several of the report’s other findings. The graphic also includes IBM’s findings on skill erosion, CHRO participation in AI strategy, workflow definitions, AI adoption inside HR, and reinvestment of AI productivity gains.
The findings extend beyond HR. More than half of employees surveyed — 52% — said their assigned tasks changed during the past year as AI reshaped day-to-day responsibilities. Yet only 26% of organizations clearly define work across human-led, AI-assisted, and AI-executed activities. IBM characterizes the situation as work changing faster than organizations are redesigning it, with day-to-day adaptation often taking the place of deliberate decisions about how people and AI should work together.
A Skills Gap Meets Skill Erosion
IBM found broad agreement between executives and employees on the importance of critical thinking and problem framing. Fifty-seven percent of executives and 49% of employees placed those capabilities near the top of the skills needed for AI-enabled work. A much larger divide emerged around evaluating AI itself: Seventy-one percent of executives prioritize the ability to supervise, validate, or override AI outputs, compared with 38% of employees — a 33-percentage-point gap.
An IBM announcement highlights another measure of that disconnect: Only 29% of employees rank judgment as important. The 29% figure measures employee prioritization of judgment and is distinct from the study page’s 38% figure for supervising, validating, or overriding AI output.
The concern is not limited to skills workers still need to acquire. IBM said skill erosion is a top concern for 46% of executives, while 60% of employees say it directly affects them. The IBM Newsroom release says 60% of employees worry about skills erosion, with critical thinking cited most often as declining. Among employees who worry about erosion, IBM said three out of four report that AI has already begun to erode at least some of their skills.
IBM distinguishes that problem from a conventional skills gap. Eighty percent of enterprises have a reskilling roadmap for their workforce to collaborate with technology, according to the study. IBM argues that such programs address capabilities employees need to acquire but do not necessarily address existing skills that diminish as AI performs more of the underlying work.
