Companies are spending more on AI than ever before. They’re also still hiring externally to fill skills gaps that may already exist in their workforce. New research from Accenture suggests those two facts are not unrelated.

“Most organizations are admiring the problem,” says head researcher Karalee Close, Accenture’s global lead for the Talent & Organization practice. “However, there are companies actually driving innovation in talent practices to solve it. That’s what we set out to find.”

‘Talent Reinventors’

Accenture identified an elite group, about 18% of organizations in a survey of 1,320 C‑suite leaders across 20 industries and 12 countries, that it calls “Talent Reinventors.” These companies grew revenue 1.8 percentage points faster and profit 1.4 percentage points faster than peers in 2025, while also strengthening culture, improving employee experience and enhancing workforce adaptability.

Talent Reinventors are also seven times more likely to strengthen organizational culture and six times more likely to improve employee experience. And they are doing it largely by unlocking resources that most HR leaders already have access to but aren’t fully using.

The research shows that 69% of organizations still rely on external hiring or limited, ad hoc internal processes with little visibility into employee skills or career pathways. Only 7% use AI-enabled platforms to power an internal-first mobility strategy. Meanwhile, 45% of employees say it is difficult to find internal roles, projects or learning opportunities, and 76% report that career pathways are unclear.

“Internal mobility is probably the most structurally underdeveloped area in talent management,” Close says. “It’s a clunky thing. The systems haven’t really adapted to what’s possible.”

A more flexible workforce

What’s possible, according to the research, is significant. Talent Reinventors are 16.5 times more likely to have dynamic, AI-informed skills data embedded in their workforce systems. Rather than relying on static job titles and outdated profiles, they maintain a living inventory of employee skills, capabilities and interests that updates continuously.

That visibility allows them to match people to opportunities with precision and to develop skills for roles that don’t yet exist, not just the ones that are open today.

The result is a more flexible workforce. Talent Reinventors are 7.2 times more likely to prioritize internal hiring using AI platforms that match employees to roles and learning opportunities, and 4.4 times more likely to have a workforce that can pivot quickly across roles as business needs change.

Developing existing employees directly addresses the widening talent gap that makes external recruitment increasingly difficult and expensive.

“The scope of the mismatch in supply and demand is so profound,” Close says. “It’s a good call to action for CHROs. And it creates a sense of safety and real opportunity for employees at a time when very few people feel safe.”

That last point matters more than it might appear. The same research found that 55% of employees are experiencing cognitive overload and 49% are anxious about job displacement. When organizations demonstrate a genuine investment in internal development, employees can see a pathway forward that doesn’t require them to leave.

Close says Talent Reinventors are also 59% more likely to use AI to assess large candidate pools for skills and fit, making them 1.3 times more likely to hire people who succeed and stay.

Read more: Workforce agility starts with HR

What progressive CHROs are doing

None of this infrastructure delivers results without leaders who understand it, model it and actively use it. Close says the CHRO can’t make the case for workforce intelligence without depending on their own fluency with what AI can actually do.

“Your ability to understand this is really important,” she says. This requires comprehension of how AI and other tech can affect the tasks that different parts of the workforce are completing. “The more progressive CHROs,” she says, “have a concrete way of showing that.”

That fluency has to extend beyond the CHRO. Talent Reinventors are nearly twice as likely to foster dignity and respect in how work is designed, and their leaders actively model the behaviors needed for a human-AI workforce. Nearly half of leadership job postings at Talent Reinventor organizations require AI and machine learning skills, far surpassing their peers.

When leaders personally engage with AI tools, something important happens at the team level. They build credibility. They reduce fear. They create permission for experimentation. And they can more concretely describe what the technology makes possible for their people

‘The most important decision a CHRO makes’

Until leaders have thoroughly experimented with the workforce intelligence tools they want to implement, they can’t set an exciting context for their peers and colleagues, Close says. “For every business, the question of what’s better will be different. But there’s an opportunity to direct capacity toward growth, to ask, ‘How could we make better decisions, how could we solve this problem differently?’ ”

The organizations that are getting this right are not just seeing better financials. They are seeing 40% reductions in turnover among Talent Reinventors who invest in breakthrough leadership practices. They are seeing faster skill development, stronger trust in leadership and higher confidence among employees in adopting AI. They are building workforces that are more adaptable precisely because they have invested in understanding what their people can do.

“How and where to develop your workforce is the most important decision a CHRO makes,” Close says. “That’s 60% to 70% of a company’s cost structure, depending on the industry. Using AI to solve that question, rather than just to automate HR tasks, is what will get CHROs recognized in the C-suite.”

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