Why Nearly Half of CEOs Plan to Retrain Their Workers for AI

Nearly half of CEOs say they plan to retrain their existing workers for the age of artificial intelligence, according to a new EY-Parthenon CEO Outlook Survey of 1,200 chief executives across 21 countries. The finding reframes a story that often reads as pure doom. Rather than swapping people out for machines, most leaders say they want to upgrade the people they already have. At Metaintro, we read this as a hopeful signal for job seekers, because it puts learning and adaptability at the center of the next phase of work. The companies that win the AI race plan to do it with retrained humans, not without them.

What Does the EY-Parthenon Survey Actually Say?

The headline number comes from the latest EY-Parthenon CEO Outlook Survey, a quarterly poll of 1,200 global chief executives spanning markets from the United States and Brazil to Germany, India, Japan, and Australia. In that survey, 42 percent of CEOs said they anticipate large-scale reskilling and upskilling of their existing employees over the next three years. Another 44 percent said they are actively redesigning roles to combine human judgment with AI tools, which means the appetite for retraining is even broader than the headline suggests.

Just as striking is the number that moved in the opposite direction. Only 20 percent of CEOs now say AI will lead to reduced hiring, down sharply from 46 percent who said the same in 2024. Coverage from Fast Company framed the result as a sign that leaders increasingly see AI as a productivity and growth tool, not a headcount-cutting one. Nearly all of the executives, 99 percent, expect AI to change their workforce strategy in some way within three years, so the question for leaders is no longer whether to act but how. EY frames this shift across its wider CEO agenda coverage as a move from cost-cutting toward disciplined, people-led growth.

The spread of countries matters here too. Because the survey reaches CEOs across North America, Europe, and Asia, the retraining trend is not the quirk of a single market. It shows up in mature economies and fast-growing ones alike, which suggests the pressure to reskill is global rather than local. When the people who sign the budgets across 21 countries say their plan is to train rather than replace, that changes the calculus for anyone deciding where to spend their own development time.

Why Are CEOs Choosing Retraining Over Layoffs?

The simplest answer is that skilled people are still hard to find, and AI has made the right skills even scarcer. The same EY-Parthenon research found that 80 percent of CEOs plan to increase their AI investment in 2026, with only 1 percent expecting to cut spending. Pouring money into AI tools while gutting the workforce that operates them rarely pays off, so leaders are trying to close the gap with training instead. The investment in software and the investment in people are starting to move together.

There is also a hard practical limit. CEOs in the survey named limited AI skills and insufficient leadership capability as a top people-related challenge, which is a polite way of saying the talent simply is not there yet to be hired in bulk. Independent research backs this up. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect 39 percent of workers core skills to change by 2030, and that 59 percent of the global workforce will need some form of training by then. You cannot hire your way out of a gap that large, so you train.

Cost matters too. Replacing an experienced worker means losing institutional knowledge, paying to recruit, and waiting months for a new hire to ramp up. Retraining keeps that knowledge in the building while adding new capability on top of it. A worker who already understands the customers, the systems, and the culture can often learn an AI workflow faster than a new hire can learn the whole job. For many leaders, the math now favors keeping people and teaching them new tools rather than starting over. The same WEF research notes that half of the workforce has now completed some learning and development training, up from 41 percent in 2023, a sign that the retraining habit is already taking hold inside companies.

Which Skills Do Companies Want Workers to Learn?

The retraining wave is not only about learning to type prompts into a chatbot. Employers want people who can fold AI into real workflows, judge when the output is wrong, and redesign their own tasks around the new tools. The 44 percent of CEOs redesigning roles in the EY-Parthenon survey are effectively rewriting job descriptions, so the most valuable skill is often the ability to adapt a role rather than any single piece of software. That adaptability is hard to automate, which is exactly why it is prized.

The World Economic Forum data points to a blend of technical and human skills. AI and big-data ability, networks and cybersecurity, and technological literacy top the list of fast-growing skills, while analytical thinking, creativity, resilience, and curiosity round out what employers prize. Research from McKinsey makes a similar point, finding that the human skills employers value most grow more important as AI spreads, not less. The pattern is consistent. Machines handle the routine, and humans are rewarded for the judgment, communication, and problem-solving that sit on top.

The market is already paying for these skills. The PwC 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer, which analyzed close to a billion job ads, found that workers with AI skills now command a wage premium of 56 percent on average, up from 25 percent the year before, and that postings requiring AI skills grew 7.5 percent even as total job ads fell. That premium is a concrete reason to treat AI fluency as an investment rather than a chore.

This is the part job seekers can act on today. You do not need a computer science degree to become the person on your team who knows how to use AI tools well. Demand is rising fast, and our own reporting on AI fluency on a 2026 resume shows employers now want proof of specific outcomes rather than a list of tools. Learning to draft with an AI assistant, check its work, and apply it to your actual job is exactly the capability that 42 percent of CEOs say they want to build, and small, practical wins on real tasks tend to count for more than abstract credentials.

Does Retraining Really Protect Jobs, or Is It Just Talk?

Healthy skepticism is fair here, because stated intentions and real budgets do not always match. The WEF found that of every 100 workers who need training by 2030, roughly 11 are unlikely to get the reskilling they need, which leaves a meaningful group exposed. The gap between talk and action is real, and our coverage of how only 6 percent of companies are actually reskilling workers found that 89 percent of leaders say their teams need AI skills while just 6 percent have started meaningful training. Plans on a survey are not the same as a funded program on the ground.

History offers some reassurance, though. EY research on companies already seeing AI productivity gains found that only a small minority responded by cutting jobs, while many reinvested those gains into more AI tools and more people. Lacey Kaelani, CEO of Metaintro, told People Managing People that "AI is not completely eliminating roles, but instead restructuring roles and therefore slowing hiring for some jobs." That restructuring is precisely why retraining matters. The work is changing shape, not disappearing, and the people who reshape with it tend to keep their footing.

The honest takeaway is that retraining is real but uneven. Some employers will invest heavily, others will talk and do little, and a slice of workers will fall through the cracks. The safest move is to treat your own upskilling as your responsibility, and to view any employer-provided training as a bonus rather than a guarantee. If you wait for permission to start learning, you may be waiting behind the colleagues who did not.

What This Means for Your Career?

If nearly half of CEOs plan to retrain their teams, the workers who lean into that shift will have the upper hand. The first practical step is to start using AI tools in your current job, even informally. The people who can show concrete examples of using AI to work faster or better are the ones who fit the roles employers are now redesigning. A single strong example often speaks louder than a list of buzzwords.

The second step is to make your learning visible. When you take a course, complete a certification, or build something with AI tools, put it on your resume and talk about it in interviews. Free and low-cost options are easy to find, since platforms like Coursera let you audit introductory AI courses at no cost. Hiring managers in this market are screening for adaptability, and a clear story about how you have grown your skills signals exactly that. Pair that with a habit of continuous learning, since the WEF data shows skills will keep shifting for years rather than settling into a fixed set.

The third step is to choose growth fields with intent. The number of jobs explicitly asking for AI skills has climbed sharply in recent years, as Gloat has tracked, so roles tied to AI, data, and cybersecurity are expanding while the human skills that complement them stay in demand. Steering your development toward those areas compounds over time. Tools like Metaintro can help you track where the market is heading and match your skills to roles that are actually hiring, so you are building toward demand rather than guessing.

How Should Job Seekers Read the 2026 Labor Market?

The broader signal from this survey is that 2026 is a year of transformation rather than collapse. With only 20 percent of CEOs expecting AI to reduce hiring, the wave of fear around mass AI layoffs looks overstated against what leaders themselves say they plan to do. That does not mean the disruption is imaginary, and our reporting on AI cited in one of every four layoffs shows the churn is real in some sectors. Even so, hiring is being reshaped rather than shut down, which means opportunity still exists for candidates who position themselves well.

The official projections point the same way. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects roles like data scientists to grow about 34 percent and information security analysts to grow roughly 29 percent through 2034, far faster than the average job, driven in large part by the spread of AI. Those are exactly the data, security, and analysis fields the retraining wave is steering workers toward, and they reward steady skill-building rather than a single lucky break.

That said, the bar is moving. As roles get redesigned around AI, employers will expect more candidates to arrive already comfortable with these tools rather than needing to be taught from scratch. The candidates who treat the retraining trend as a personal head start, rather than waiting for an employer program, will stand out in a crowded applicant pool. Comfort with AI is quietly becoming a baseline expectation rather than a bonus, and the EY-Parthenon numbers suggest employers will keep raising that bar as their own AI investment climbs.

The practical mindset for the year ahead is simple. Stay informed about where hiring is growing, keep building AI-ready skills, and frame your adaptability as a selling point. The CEOs have told us their plan in their own words, and it rewards people who are ready to learn. Treat this moment as an invitation to grow rather than a threat to survive, and the same forces shaking up the market can work in your favor.

People Also Asked

Q: How many CEOs plan to retrain workers for AI?

A: According to the EY-Parthenon CEO Outlook Survey of 1,200 global chief executives, 42 percent anticipate large-scale reskilling and upskilling of their existing employees over the next three years. A separate 44 percent are redesigning roles to combine human and AI capabilities, and 99 percent expect AI to change their workforce strategy in some way within three years.

Q: Will AI reduce hiring in 2026?

A: The EY-Parthenon survey found that only 20 percent of CEOs expect AI to lead to reduced hiring, down from 46 percent in 2024. Most leaders now describe AI as a productivity and growth tool rather than a reason to cut staff, which suggests hiring is being reshaped rather than shut down across most industries.

Q: What skills should I learn to stay competitive as AI grows?

A: The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report points to AI and data skills, cybersecurity, and technological literacy as fast-growing, alongside human strengths like analytical thinking, creativity, and resilience. The most valuable habit is learning to use AI tools in your actual work, then checking and improving their output rather than trusting it blindly.

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