Jobs and AI in 2026: what makes the cut

There's no argument that many layoffs have happened since generative AI appeared. The question is perhaps what happens now as businesses embrace AI.

Source: Salesforce.
Barfield.

Gavin Barfield, VP and CTO, Solutions, Salesforce ASEAN, described an agentic enterprise as "a company where AI agents and human experts work as a seamless team, unlocking a level of productivity and innovation we've only dreamed of". "As you gather evidence that the agent is performing reliably, you can grant it more responsibility. This phased approach ensures you have a scalable and sustainable approach to becoming an agentic enterprise," he said.

Barfield also said that agentic enterprises could transition to an "orchestrated workforce" model, within which a primary "orchestrator" agent directs smaller, expert agents, much like how a restaurant’s general manager oversees the work of hosts, servers, managers, chefs, cooks, and expediters.

"In an enterprise context, a service agent processes a customer’s inquiry while an inventory agent checks product availability, before the orchestrator agent coordinates all these inputs into a coherent, effective, on-brand, and contextually-relevant response for the human employee to share with the customer," he said.

"Crucially, this model ensures humans remain in control. The human role shifts to a high-level supervisor, who leverages AI-powered observability tools to set guardrails, ensure ethics, and oversee the entire digital team's performance."

Source: BytePlus.
Zhang.

Inexperience vs experience

"AI is very friendly to young individuals. New fields do not depend heavily on decades of experience, and young professionals tend to learn faster, experiment more, and adopt new tools quickly. In contrast, many experienced workers rely on historical knowledge or familiar client scenarios, which can make it harder for them to spot emerging opportunities," stated Yongliang Zhang, GM, BytePlus.

"With effective use of AI, young professionals can reach the same level of output as senior colleagues — sometimes even higher. AI helps them compensate for limited experience by accelerating learning and execution. For senior professionals, AI is not only a challenge. People with deep technical or domain expertise can often extract more value from AI than juniors can. The real change is not 'AI replacing people', but 'people who use AI well replacing people who do not'." 

Skills acquisition

Sima Saadat, Singapore Country Manager, General Assembly, said turning employees into AI natives is more sustainable than trying to hire from a limited talent pool. "The industry cannot afford to ignore how 'maintenance IT' roles are declining while AI-augmented tech roles surge, and that upskilling existing engineers, analysts and designers into AI-native practitioners will be more sustainable than trying to hire 'unicorns' from a shallow talent pool.

Source: General
Assembly. Saadat.

"Workers in non-tech industries such as HR, marketing, operations and finance have to be upskilled in AI to remain competitive; these shifts show that the future workforce isn’t just 'digital' — it’s AI-native, and companies that ignore this transition risk face serious skill gaps," Saadat said.

AI literacy

AI literacy will be paramount, said Remus Lim, Senior VP, Asia Pacific & Japan, Cloudera. "In 2026, talent development will define success. Enterprises that fail to invest in AI literacy, technical upskilling, and ethical awareness risk operational inefficiencies, inconsistent outputs, and compliance lapses. Employees need not only to understand how AI works, but when and how to trust its output," Lim said.

"Organisations that embed responsible AI principles into training, governance, and workflow design will build a more confident and capable workforce. This combination of human skill and structured guardrails will allow teams to innovate faster, reduce risk, and ensure every AI decision aligns with enterprise ethics and data governance standards." 

Source: Cloudera.
Lim.

Carl Windsor, CISO, Fortinet, said that schools have to step up to encourage AI literacy. "Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) is already well established in the workforce, and Gen Alpha (born between 2013 and 2029) will be entering the workforce in the next few years," he noted.

"Because many new workers were raised in the digital age, where information is abundant but attention is limited due to social media, we must adapt our approach to recruitment, training, and, ultimately, work. AI is also growing so rapidly that it is replacing many of the entry-level roles that new graduates may typically have cut their teeth on in the past. This would mean there would be no stepping-stone to the more senior roles that are still required."

Windsor predicted that AI fluency will become a baseline skill. "For this to happen, it must be woven into every student’s curriculum if we hope to prepare tomorrow’s workforce for an AI-driven world," he said. 

"As today’s entry-level roles evolve or disappear, those who understand how to apply and secure AI will advance fastest." 

"With advanced AI adopters reporting significantly better business results, there is a growing need for specialised skills to move AI adoption out of early, fragmented stages and into integrated operations," said Megan Hughes, MD, JAPAC, HubSpot.

"Some skills sets that will become essential competencies for high-performing JAPAC teams in 2026 include:

- Cross-functional AI governance: As AI embeds across organisations, businesses need leaders who can establish ethical frameworks, audit AI outputs for bias and compliance, and ensure responsible deployment at scale, not just within one department, but across the entire business.  

- Strategic AI integration: Beyond tool adoption, organisations need talent who can identify where AI creates the most business value, design intelligent workflows that connect across functions, and drive adoption across teams resistant to change. 

- Executive data fluency: Leaders must move beyond reviewing dashboards to interpreting complex data, connecting insights to business strategy, and making confident decisions based on AI-generated recommendations. 

The future belongs to executives who can think alongside AI, not just delegate to data specialists," Hughes said.

 

Source: Jobstreet by SEEK's 2025 Job Search Rewind. AI fluency has become a key qualification for top candidates – 54% of employers consider AI skills when hiring, with 19% seeing it as a primary consideration according to Jobstreet by SEEK’s Hiring, Compensation and Benefits 2025 report. There was a 12% increase in searches for 'data analysis' – an AI skill, and 93% more searches for 'automation' from November 2024 to October 2025, Jobstreet said.

AI literacy is critical to increase trust in AI and lift AI adoption, said Forrester, leading to 30% of large enterprises mandating AI training for employees in 2026. 

"Both AI adoption and risk management through responsible AI training are intrinsic to AI maturity. That’s why enterprisewide AI literacy not only improves the organisation’s artificial intelligence quotient (AIQ) but also protects the company from liability, particularly in regulated industries. Consider partnering with an AI service provider or your existing technology providers to offer formalised training and set clear measures of success to gauge AI knowledge and use," the consultancy advised in a blog post on 2026 predictions. 

The role of open source

Source: Red Hat.
Chellappan.

The demand for cloud-native, AI, and cybersecurity talent continues to outpace supply across APAC, and in 2026, the gap will only widen unless organisations invest in a skills-first approach to build, operate, and optimise modern digital systems, said Guna Chellappan, GM for Singapore, Red Hat.

"Open source communities will play a central role in this shift. They provide shared knowledge, transparency, and a global ecosystem rooted in collaboration. Tools and frameworks are also made available to everyone, instead of just a few. As more enterprises contribute back to these communities – by building on ideas quickly and responsibly – APAC will strengthen its position in digital innovation, not just as a consumer but increasingly as a creator."

"The right model, in the right environment, on the right architecture will define the next era of enterprise AI. The success of agentic AI will hinge not only on powerful models, but on the infrastructure, governance, and skills that support them. In 2026, openness, flexibility, and collaboration will remain the principles that help organisations move from potential to real, measurable outcomes. With no single model suited to every enterprise context, open source will continue to underpin the freedom and innovation needed to build what comes next."

Charting training outcomes

Source: Workday.
O'Reilly.

"The question is no longer how many AI tools an organisation deploys, but whether employees are gaining new capabilities because of them. HR success will be defined by tangible outcomes like faster skill development, stronger internal mobility, and higher-quality performance, rather than AI usage metrics," said Jess O’Reilly, GM, ASEAN, Workday.

"This requires leaders to set a clear vision for how AI accelerates people growth, and employees to use AI to elevate the quality of their work, not just generate generic output. 

"Ultimately, the benchmark for AI is simple: are employees gaining new capabilities, confidence and opportunities that they would not have had otherwise? In 2026, the competitive advantage will go to organisations that use AI to grow their people, not just productivity." 

Human x AI 

Hughes from HubSpot said that organisations in Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) will shift from simple AI adoption to strategic integration across core workflows in 2026. "This will set the stage for true hybrid human-AI teams where technology serves as an accelerator, not a replacement. While AI handles high-volume operational tasks — generating reports, analysing data, monitoring customer signals — human teams will be freed up to focus on higher-value strategic work: building customer relationships, navigating complex decisions, and driving innovation," she predicted.

"However, implementation gaps exist even within highly advanced digital hubs like Singapore. HubSpot research found that while overall AI adoption remains high, with 83% of Singapore businesses having adopted AI, only 16% are at an advanced stage where the technology is implemented across multiple business functions.

"The true impact of hybrid teams can only be unlocked when AI is embedded deeply across the entire business lifecycle, not just within marketing or sales, but across operations, customer service, and finance. This transforms fragmented functions into a cohesive, intelligent engine, turning AI from a productivity tool for individual departments into an organisation-wide competitive advantage."

Sakshi Dhakad, Director of Product Management at Mendix, said that working with AI must include an understanding of how best to work with AI agents in particular. “In the future, as we see AI agents taking on more work, keeping the human in the loop will be a critical element. The human role is going to shift from do-er to approver – with a focus on monitoring, reviewing and authorising. And this will require leaders to carefully balance the need for innovation with the right amount of safety and security in place," Dhakad said.  

"This shift has two elements. Firstly, it’s ‘how do you govern AI well without unleashing more work?’ That means equipping teams with the ability to review agents and providing them with the right mix of auditability, explainability and observability. Gartner recently called this role ‘guardian agents’, highlighting the need for organisations to assign employees to help govern AI agents and teach other agents what to do. The other area is actually using AI for better governance." 

Critical thinking goes extinct

Gartner, on the other hand, has pointed out a downside to generative AI. The company has predicted that through 2026, the atrophy of critical-thinking skills, due to generative AI use, will push 50% of global organisations to require “AI-free” skills assessments.

"As automation accelerates, the ability to think independently and creatively will become both increasingly rare — and increasingly valuable," said Daryl Plummer, Gartner VP, Distinguished Analyst & Gartner Fellow, in a blog post.

New roles

AI is also creating new types of roles — prompt engineers, forward deployed engineers (FDE), and service providers focused on AI-optimised infrastructure. "These roles combine traditional expertise with new AI skills, which puts people with strong domain backgrounds in a strong position to lead," said Zhang.

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