If 2025 was the year of massive investments in AI, University of Virginia Darden School of Business Finance Professor Yiorgos Allayannis believes 2026 should be the year C-suite leaders start striving for a commensurate return in terms of AI adoption, productivity gains and cost efficiencies.
If AI ROI becomes reality, it would have major ramifications on global labor markets and economic output, as well as on talent needs and employment.
Even in the age of AI, talent is still destiny. As such, talent and HR leaders will play a foundational role in 2026 helping their organizations navigate AI disruption and challenges of all kinds through hiring and talent development.
Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning (EELL) Chief Digital Learning Officer Anne Trumbore, who studies learning science and education technologies, said hiring is critical to build a sustainable, skills-based talent system that keeps pace with AI-driven change. “Organizations must cultivate adaptable internal talent,” she said. “The key over the next 12 months is investing in transparent skills strategies, AI-enabled learning and early talent pipelines that make continuous development part of everyday work.”
Devin Bigoness, EELL Chief Client Officer, believes the overarching challenge for HR leaders in 2026 will be driving talent development that balances keeping pace with the changing world and providing enough depth for real-impact capability development. Bigoness said achieving balance requires HR leaders to manage at least four competing variables to find the talent development sweet spot:
- Speed and pace to keep up with rapid change
- Cost efficiencies and value creation
- Program scalability that is focused enough for impact
- Targeted, focused solutions for key talent populations that also lift organizational capabilities more broadly
Read Part 1 of Darden EELL’s 2026 look-ahead: “Top of Mind Business Issues to Manage in 2026”
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As a scholar who studies technology disruptions, Darden’s interim dean, Professor Mike Lenox believes C-suite leaders in 2026 should be focused on three intersecting, AI-related strategic trends: digitization, decarbonization and decoupling.
“Digitization, especially generative AI, is proving to be the general-purpose technology both celebrated and feared that is disrupting a wide swath of business sectors,” Lenox said. “I suspect that in the next 12 months, we will begin to experience the shakeout phase of the AI lifecycle where some high-flying start-ups and once successful incumbents will fail in the face of increased competition.”
Darden Marketing Professor Luca Cian agrees with Lenox that 2026 will be defined by an AI shakeout as business leaders from the C-suite to functional heads push organizational AI acceptance in the face of a trust crisis. “The difference isn’t the technology—it’s the psychology,” Cian said. “The companies that win in 2026 will be those that understand: AI adoption isn’t a technology problem—it’s a trust problem. And trust requires psychological architecture, not just technical infrastructure.”
Lenox said decarbonization is intersecting with digitization as the acceleration of AI is driving massive energy demand that is pressuring businesses’ energy and sustainability goals. Lastly, he defines decoupling as the separation of major global trade partners and supply chains, which is changing how businesses get access to key technologies critical to business success.
“The key to managing such major disruptions is to keep an eye on the big picture and not to overreact to the daily news cycle,” Lenox said. “Pay attention to the patterns of disruption that are well documented. Continually ask not only: ‘Where are market opportunities being created,’ but also ‘How do our evolving capabilities create valuable competitive positions in a transforming marketplace?’”
Hope for Managing AI Disruption in 2026
The pace of change in the face of a technology disruption as upending as AI can be daunting. However, it’s important to remember disruptions like AI are driving economic growth and unprecedented levels of new business value. Managing change is about finding the right strategies to capture the value.
Trumbore offers hope that 2026 is the year organizations will empower their employees to manage change and thrive amid the chaos of AI and other disruptions.
“Leading employers are already treating learning as a strategic asset, and this trend has real momentum,” she said. “Companies are building internal talent marketplaces and partnering with schools to create applied learning pathways. These actions signal a shift from episodic training to continuous capability building, which will meaningfully close skill gaps in 2026.”
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