Investment in AI is moving deeper into operational reality, with organizations projecting an average AI spend of $202 million over the next 12 months and over half (53%) having already deployed AI agents across their operations. But as adoption scales, a new reality is taking shape. Value is no longer defined by access or activity – it’s defined by how effectively people use AI.
Need to Know
- Strong AI results come from pairing technology with workforce upskilling.
- Top performers use AI as a reasoning partner, guided by human judgment.
- Effective human-AI collaboration needs training, iteration, and clear best practices.
- Trust, transparency, and oversight drive adoption and long-term value.
Moving from adoption to execution
Many businesses are adopting advanced AI tools, and they’re doing so at a rapid rate. But, as they attempt to move from adoption to value realization, the barrier is no longer whether employees can use AI, but whether organizations are enabling them to use it effectively.
“Most organizations have AI but they’re not getting consistent, measurable results from it,” says Katie Dahler, Principal, Human Capital Advisory Leader, KPMG US. “That only changes when leaders step back, redesign how work actually happens, and intentionally orchestrate people and AI together to deliver outcomes at scale.”
For Dahler, this shift places even more emphasis on nurturing a future-ready workforce. That change is already in motion, both in hiring and development. According to the KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse Survey, leaders are signaling that success in the future of work will depend on two complementary capabilities: stronger interpersonal skills and deeper AI fluency.
More than half of leaders (54%) say that, in today’s labor market, strong social and interpersonal skills are more important for career success than strong mathematical or technical skills. At the same time, 55% expect increasing levels of AI fluency.
Together, the findings point to a clear non-negotiable: organizations need people who can collaborate, communicate, adapt to realize the full potential of AI in the workplace. And they’re wising up to it. Upskilling and reskilling remain the top strategy to meet the needs of an AI-enabled workforce for the second quarter (65%).
Learning to work differently
Prioritizing people in AI deployment is critical as AI doesn’t create value in isolation. The technology requires people who know when to use it and how to translate raw outputs into better decision-making.
A joint study by KPMG and the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin makes this distinction clear. By observing more than 1.4 million real-world workplace AI interactions across 2,500 employees over an eight-month period, researchers discovered that AI use effectiveness was not linked to technical expertise alone.
Instead, top performers treat the technology as a reasoning partner, using AI to tackle complex tasks by actively refining outputs across multiple exchanges and rigorously applying human judgment throughout the process.
“That’s when AI moves from one-off productivity wins to consistent, enterprise-wide impact, and results in better decisions, faster execution, and results that actually scale,” Dahler says.
In other words, the greatest business gains happen when we look past the idea of AI as a digital shortcut. Used correctly, it can become a cognitive tool that changes how we work, leaving workers with the breathing room to focus on the creative, high-value work that a machine cannot replicate.
How leaders can create better human-AI collaboration
- Show don’t tell: Move beyond telling employees to “use AI” and show them what good use looks like.
- Learn by doing: Give workers hands-on training so they feel comfortable using AI at work.
- Normalize the second draft: Teach teams the importance of refining the first answer AI gives them.
- Prioritize people: Build trust by making sure human oversight and values always come first.
- Measure what matters: Track if AI is bettering the quality of employee decisions and experiences.
Building the trust foundation
As AI embeds itself deeper into corporate work, forward-thinking leaders are realizing that workers cannot use it without a foundation of trust.
“Trust is foundational. Without it, adoption doesn’t just slow, it stops,” explains Dahler. “If people don’t understand how AI works or where the boundaries are, they won’t use it. That’s why we help clients build transparency, clear guardrails, and human oversight into the experience – so employees feel confident using AI responsibly and at scale.”
So yes, it’s clear that the future of AI will benefit those businesses that embed AI into the fabric of their organization. But it will also reward those that align technical deployment with people development, ensuring that human judgment remains at the core of every automated decision.
Discover how KPMG is helping enterprises drive value, unlock new opportunities, and navigate the future of AI here.
