Two futures for jobs in an AI era

Companies leading with AI aren’t just growing faster in terms of revenue, they also see faster headcount growth. Since 2022, the most AI-exposed companies (companies in which AI has an impact on the way of working) have tripled their lead in workforce productivity growth over the least AI-exposed. Rather than simply replacing jobs, AI’s reshaping them in fundamentally different ways. At one end of the spectrum, AI’s professionalising work, automating routine tasks, and elevating the importance of human expertise, judgement, and creativity. At the other end, it’s democratising work, reducing the skill barriers for complex tasks, and shifting roles toward less specialised activities. This divergence is creating two tracks in the labour market with markedly different outcomes. That’s just one of the conclusions of PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer. The research is based on an analysis of nearly one billion job ads and thousands of company financial reports across six continents, including Belgium.

The takeaways

AI’s creating a ‘two-track’ labour market—‘professionalised’ roles in which AI acts like a force multiplier for experts, requiring more human-intensive skills, that see greater growth across headcount and wages than ‘democratised’ roles (in which AI makes the role itself easier for non-experts to perform).

Companies most able to use AI are seeing faster headcount growth than the least AI-exposed companies (53% vs. 36%) and higher wage growth (24% vs. 17%).

“Super-star companies” most exposed to AI achieved labour productivity gains of 163%, significantly outpacing other businesses.

Jobs requiring specific AI skills are growing almost eight times (69%) faster since 2019 than the total jobs market (9%), with the average wage premium for AI skills rising to 62%.

Entry-level outlook diverges—analysis of US data shows AI-exposed entry-level roles are seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level skills such as judgement and leadership. These roles grew 35% since 2019, while other entry-level roles declined by 10%.

AI as a growth accelerator

The study reveals a seemingly counter intuitive finding—greater AI exposure is linked to headcount growth, not reduction. Why? While AI can deliver significant value through productivity improvements, its greatest potential comes in redesigning how companies operate. Reinvention’s the key to unlocking the maximum benefits of AI. Our data suggests that the companies achieving the largest productivity gains are taking that route. Headcount growth at the most exposed organisations is double the growth at the least exposed, with wages also growing significantly faster. Consistent with other PwC research, we find a 'superstar' effect. While the companies most exposed to AI are seeing productivity growth relative to a 2018 baseline of 34%, if you zoom in on the top 20% of companies in this group, that number rises to 163%.

As work evolves quickly, skill needs change rapidly too. Employers should increasingly be focused on attributes that are distinctively human. Skills required for the most AI-exposed jobs are changing twice as fast as in the least exposed roles, while new tasks that rely on skills like empathy, judgement, and creativity are added 2.5 times faster.

A two-track jobs market is emerging

We believe that what matters is how automation reshapes roles—specifically, whether AI automation grows or diminishes the need for human expertise (defined as specialised knowledge or capabilities).

Three types of jobs

All jobs globally fall into one of three categories:

Low AI exposure jobs

Jobs that include few tasks in which AI has capabilities, so AI’s likely to have limited impact on the role. Examples: chefs, construction workers, mechanics.

Professionalised jobs

Jobs reshaped by AI to demand more expertise. Examples: radiologists, employment recruiters, air traffic controllers

Democratised jobs

Jobs reshaped by AI to demand less expertise. Examples: software developers, loan officers, finance managers.

On one hand, AI’s professionalising work, automating routine tasks, and elevating the importance of human expertise, judgement, and creativity. On the other, it’s democratising work, reducing the skill barriers for complex tasks, and shifting roles toward less specialised activities. This divergence is creating two tracks in the labour market with markedly different outcomes. The 22% of jobs that are being professionalised are growing twice as fast as democratised jobs (52% of jobs) and seeing 42% higher wage growth since 2021.

Professionalised jobs are being reshaped to demand more expertise, such as radiologists, air traffic controllers, and employment recruiters. Once expected to be displaced, these roles now show rising demand, wages, and skill requirements.

Based on 2.4 million entry-level jobs analysed in the US, for these AI-exposed jobs, the junior roles are seven times more likely to require traditionally senior skills (leadership, strategic thinking) than the least exposed junior roles. These entry-level job openings have grown 35% in number since 2019, while other entry-level roles decline.

On the other hand, PwC data shows that AI significantly reduces the human expertise needed for some democratised jobs, enhancing the accessibility of work and activating opportunities for a broader group of lower-skilled job seekers.

The AI skills earthquake is accelerating

Professionalised roles, in particular, are becoming more complex and demanding, but that doesn’t mean workers in democratised roles can stand still when it comes to skills development.

Skills needed for the most AI-exposed (democratised and professionalised) jobs are changing more than twice as fast as for the least AI-exposed jobs. What’s more, the gap in the pace of skills evolution between the most and least AI-exposed jobs is growing quickly. The most AI-exposed occupations are now evolving their skillsets at more than twice the rate of the least exposed roles—a 75% increase over last year's gap.

‘Superstar’ companies are capturing the greatest gains from AI

Since 2022, when AI use first started to soar, the most AI-exposed companies have leapt ahead in top-line productivity growth (measured in revenue per employee)—and their lead’s growing. PwC’s 2026 AI performance noted this super-star effect with 20% of companies claiming 74% of the gains from AI.

What are the superstars getting right? According to the study, the single strongest factor in capturing outsized gains is whether a company uses AI to pursue growth opportunities, especially opportunities created by collaborating or competing across sector lines.

This year’s AI Jobs Barometer confirms that AI’s being used for expansive growth. We find that headcount growth at the most AI-exposed companies is far outpacing that at the least AI-exposed companies—and the gap has grown every year since 2022. This implies that AI-exposed companies—and especially the superstars—aren’t just using AI to find efficiencies or reduce headcount. They appear to also be using AI to fuel growth, which in turn is spurring expansive hiring and wage increases. The headcount data, too, aligns with PwC’s AI performance study which found that 32% of AI performance leaders expect headcount increases of five percent or more, while only 17% of AI underperformers expect headcount increases. Far from being a job killer, AI may actually be a job expander.

Belgian industry insight

The technology, media, and telecoms (TMT) industry segment showed the highest share of AI job postings in Belgium, consistent with its role as the most digitally intensive sector. With the exception of the energy, utilities, and resources industry segment, which saw a marginal drop in the share of AI job postings, all sectors saw an increase in the share of AI-related jobs in 2025, pointing to broad-based growth in hiring of AI skills. This suggests AI adoption in Belgium is expanding across the economy, rather than being concentrated in a small set of industries.

Hiring of AI specialists is rising sharply, indicating growing AI investment

Companies are accelerating their investment in AI systems and the people who build, run, and optimise them. Hiring of AI specialists grew on a global scale roughly eight times faster in 2025 than overall hiring, and it’s up across all regions and industries. However, the share of AI job postings in Belgium grew from 1.8% to 2.1% in 2025. Tech, media, and telecom are leading globally with 11.4% of 2025 listings for AI specialists. In Belgium, AI user roles account for most AI-related jobs and continue to drive overall demand. However, demand for these roles contracted by around 1.6k in 2025. Similarly, Belgian AI developer roles saw a sharper decline, falling by around 3.2k roles in 2025.

Overall, this points to weaker demand across both categories in the last year, with AI user roles declining by 5.7% and AI developer roles by 26.4%, following a period of stronger growth.

Conclusion

Our analysis of over a billion job listings worldwide doesn’t support worries about an AI-driven jobs apocalypse10—but it does reveal a deep reshaping of the jobs market and the skills required to succeed.

Next steps for business leaders

Use AI to pursue growth over efficiency alone. Companies gaining the greatest value from AI aren’t using it only to cut costs or shave headcount. Instead, they’re using it to unlock new revenue, enter new markets, and create new forms of value. Leaders should frame their AI agenda around growth opportunities, especially by partnering across traditional industry lines.
Shape workforce strategy using a professionalised/democratised lens to guide talent investment and skills development while anticipating attrition pressures.
Invest in agentic AI, the ultimate complement to human expertise. With a team of AI agents at their command, workers can use their uniquely human expertise to deliver value at much greater scale—enabling their organisations to think, adapt, and execute faster than competitors. PwC’s AI performance study found that those companies getting the most value from their AI investments are twice as likely to deploy agents as those seeing lower ROI.
Reinvent early career pathways. Map junior roles that increasingly demand senior-level capabilities. Redesign onboarding, mentorship, and training programmes to accelerate development of advanced skills like leadership, stakeholder management, and strategic decision making. PwC has partnered with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to outline pragmatic steps to restructure early career pathways for an AI era.
Invest in human-intensive skills alongside AI skills. Empathy, judgment, creativity, and leadership become more competitively valuable as AI absorbs routine and technical tasks. Building a workforce with these capabilities is as strategically important as developing workers’ AI proficiency.

Next steps for workers

Consider moving toward roles made more expert by AI. Our analysis suggests opportunity is migrating from democratised roles toward professionalised and low AI exposure roles (with exceptions).
Seek out pioneering companies and industries. Look for companies that are using AI to create new markets or services, or who are partnering across traditional industry lines to invent the new businesses of the future.
Learn to command AI as a tool and partner. Our work suggests that the following saying’s true—you won’t lose your job to AI but rather to someone who knows how to use AI.
Build human-intensive skills. Hone the skills whose value is rising in an AI era such as creativity, people skills, leadership, judgment, and the ability to navigate complexity and ambiguity.
If you’re early in your career, develop senior skills fast. The good news is that many junior workers will be spared years of drudgery on basic, repetitive tasks. The tough news is that those same workers need to quickly step up to demonstrate skills like leadership and strategic thinking.

“There’s a clear lesson from this year’s AI Jobs Barometer for both business leaders and workers—winning isn’t just about implementing and using technology, it’s about human skills. The more AI’s deployed, the more distinctly human expertise is valued. For organisations, the focus should be on redesigning work not just automating tasks. For individuals it’s imperative that they hone their leadership, judgement, creative, and teamworking skills so they can do what AI can’t.”

Xavier VerhaegheManagement Partner Advisory, Innovation and Technology Leader, PwC Belgium