What I’ll be watching for as leaders make real decisions...
Without doubt, AI is the single biggest influence on how organisations operate that I have seen in my working life.
We've all lived through digitisation, restructures labelled as transformation, and operating model shifts that promised efficiency and delivered exhaustion. But none of those will compare to what organisations are now moving into.
This moment feels different. Not because the pace of change is faster, although it is. But because AI is a tool unlike anything humans and organisations have used before.
AI acts as a strange mix of efficiency superpower and cognitive lift. At its best, it accelerates and supplements thinking, removes friction, and sharpens outputs. At its worst, it simply gets things wrong, and not harmlessly.
AI generates incorrect information. It reinforces existing bias. It shapes decisions in ways that appear objective but aren't. These systems carry the fingerprints of their creators, which means they're riddled with human bias, blind spots, and values, and they're driving organisational decisions at scale.
AI can also be misused. Maliciously, yes. And, unconsciously. Through shortcuts. Through over-reliance. Through decisions made without enough human judgement left in the loop.
Many organisations are treating AI primarily as a capability upgrade. My view is that AI will be one of humanity's greatest leadership, and existential, tests.
Pace changes behaviour.
Tools like AI will change how people think, how decisions are made, and what organisations come to believe is acceptable risk. In many cases, this will happen faster than governance, ethics, and leadership maturity can keep up.
2026 already feels like the year where organisations will stop experimenting with AI and start making structural decisions because of it. Decisions about operating models, spans of control, capability, cost, and workforce size.
I hope I'm wrong about the resulting redundancies.
But I'm confident that I won't be.
Here is what I will be watching for.
1. Organisational structures will shift again
As AI has moved into the mainstream, many organisations have already shifted toward a diamond model. Slim executive teams. Fewer layers at the base. A stretched middle holding the system together.
What comes next will look different.
Executive teams will remain lean. Middle leadership remits will widen again. Beneath that will sit a new base made up of human-agent teams. Smaller human teams with sharper capability, supported by AI systems carrying a significant share of operational work.
On paper, this will look efficient.
In reality, pressure will concentrate higher in the organisation, particularly in the middle.
When layers are removed, demand does not disappear. It moves. The people who absorb that demand will become the new layer, often without the authority, recognition, or support that used to come with it.
Organisational charts may flatten. Human load will not.
2. Leadership roles will carry more load than organisations will name
Leadership has always involved complexity. What will change is the weight of judgement leaders will be required to carry.
Middle leaders will be expected to translate strategy, manage performance, support people through uncertainty, and keep work moving at pace. They will do this with fewer buffers than before and with roles shifting underneath them in real time.
Executive leaders will be required to manage risk and governance in an environment where the technology and the ethical questions surrounding its use evolve constantly. AI will be adopted before guardrails are perfect. Errors will occur. The consequences will be human.
I am already having conversations with capable, committed leaders who feel the pressure building, but struggle to name it without sounding resistant to progress.
When leaders struggle in this environment, it will not be because they are incapable.
It will be because the system will be asking more than it admits.
AI may augment thinking, but it will not remove responsibility. In many cases, it will increase it.
3. Work will be redesigned while it is being done
This is where trust will be most at risk.
Roles will continue to shift underneath people. One day someone will be performing well in a role. The next day, the role itself will look materially different because of changes made the day before.
Tasks will change.
Success measures will change.
What is valued will change.
If organisations do not explain this clearly, people will experience change as arbitrary. When redundancy decisions land in that context, they will feel abrupt rather than grounded.
That gap will quietly erode trust.
I am seeing people sense their work changing long before anyone explains what it means for them.
Leaders will need simple, honest language early. For example:
“Your performance is not the issue. The work is changing. Here is what is changing, what is not, and how we will support you while we work through what comes next.”
People can tolerate change. What they struggle with is silence, confusion, ambiguity, and the sense that decisions are happening to them rather than with them.
4. Redeployment capability will become a competitive advantage
As work continues to shift, organisations will either have talent options at their disposal or they will not.
Those that do will outperform those that do not.
I expect to see more examples of people whose roles genuinely disappear but who are moved early into adjacent work. They will learn alongside AI tools, build new capability, and remain employed because redeployment was taken seriously before timelines hardened.
Redeployment will not be a last-minute HR activity. It will be a leadership and workforce planning capability. It is telling that in LinkedIn’s recent Top Roles study, organisational development ranked in the top five globally, reflecting how urgently organisations now need to redesign work, capability, and pathways rather than simply reduce headcount.
Organisations that understand their skills base, can see where work is heading, and are willing to talk to people early will have options. Those that cannot will default to exits.
My hope is that more people will move into new work instead of being pushed out of old roles.
My concern will remain with those who cannot reskill quickly or are never given the opportunity.
5. Outplacement will become a reputation decision
Outplacement will no longer be a procurement task or a compliance step.
In leaner, more transparent organisations, exits will be highly visible. People will notice how decisions are made, how clearly they are explained, and how much care shows up when work ends.
How organisations exit people will become one of the clearest signals of what they truly value.
That signal will travel. It will show up later in engagement, attraction, retention, referrals, and trust.
If you are leading workforce change in 2026, it will be worth asking early where your organisation is most likely to struggle. Structure. Capability. Or how exits are handled once decisions are made.
At Progressional, we will continue designing outplacement for this reality. Earlier support. Clear thinking. Care for humans. Mental health literacy. Accountability for the human impact of organisational decisions.
Because the human impact is part of the work.
People deserve better.
