Practical developments and impacts: AI integration will accelerate enterprise wide as more effective use cases are developed – both for everyday tasks and management practices and business strategy – with HR at the forefront.
- Gen AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini) and apps are developing so rapidly, it is difficult for experts, much less CHROs, to keep up.
- We may see more HR AI integration beyond automation of everyday tasks into management practices and business strategy.
- Large companies are prioritizing AI adoption more than ever, and many enterprise integration pilots are underway that will give us effective use cases in the months ahead.
- The Association launched its Center on Workplace AI, which is currently synthesizing a number of use cases that it will share with membership, including a feature at this year’s CHRO Summit.
- AI-related job displacement became a major topic towards the end of 2025, but we have yet to see significant job shifts in the data. Recent studies by Vanguard and the Yale Budget Lab show little immediate job impact – in fact, the top occupations most exposed to automation are outperforming the rest of the job market in growth and real wage increases.
We may start to see more impactful job shifts in 2026, and our latest member survey confirms reskilling and upskilling is a top concern for CHROs.
The policy response: 2026 might be the year where workplace AI regulation finally begins to catch up with development and deployment, particularly if AI-related job displacement becomes widespread.
- Colorado’s landmark AI Act – the first major workplace AI law in the U.S. – is set to go into effect this summer, pending potential further delay by Gov. Polis (D).
- In 2025, despite a flood of AI bills being introduced (and in some cases passed), states largely held off from broad AI regulation in favor of continued innovation. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed multiple bills that would have impacted workplace AI integration.
- As AI integration continues to accelerate – with the potential for increased job displacement – the pressure to institute guardrails will ratchet up.
- Expect New York, California, Virginia and other states to pass more – and potentially broader – laws targeting workplace AI.
- On the federal level, President Trump issued an Executive Order calling for a federal AI framework that would preempt state laws, but achieving a bipartisan law in Congress this year is unlikely.
- The Executive Order also threatened legal action against and/or withholding of federal funds from states that pass their own AI laws in the meantime, but the authority for doing so is dubious at best.