World Economic Forum

WEF argues that the prevailing 'lift-and-shift' approach — bolting AI tools onto existing job descriptions — is now the single largest source of wasted AI investment. The piece calls for CHROs to take primary ownership of work redesign, building task-level inventories of every role, identifying which tasks are best done by humans, agents, or human-agent pairs, and rebuilding role architectures before tooling decisions are made.

 The framing introduces the idea of a 'Chief Workforce Architect' — sometimes called the Agentic CHRO — as a P&L-carrying role at the intersection of technology, economics and ethics. The article cites SHRM data showing 46% of organisations expect to use AI in HR in 2026, and Bersin research forecasting that AI super agents could automate 60–70% of L&D work and reduce HR headcount by up to 30% over the next 24 months.

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Organisation(s): World Economic Forum (with contributors from Mercer, Workday and named global employers)

Source: World Economic Forum — May 2026

‍TOPHR takeaway

Lead clients to a task-level redesign methodology before any tooling roadmap. The WEF framing — humans, agents, or pairs — is a useful client-ready lens. Pair it with workforce planning that explicitly funds reskilling and net-new agentic-era roles, not just headcount reduction.