Nathaniel Whittemore

agents are also shaping what companies expect from their talent.

57% said that they expect humans to primarily manage and direct AI agents in the next two to three years.

64% said agents had already changed their approach to entry-level hiring, which is interestingly lower than the percentage who said that agents had changed their approach to experienced hires, which was at 71%.

And for the carrot in this equation, 45% of leaders said that they're willing to pay 11 to 15% more for strong AI skills.

When it comes to how they get these skills, most leaders are looking internally first.

87% said that they are focused on upskilling or reskilling their current workforce.

68% said that they're hiring for new roles like AI architects.

55% said that they're redesigning existing roles, all of which is much higher than the percentage that are turning to managed services at 39% or acqui-hires at 17% to get the AI skills they need.

Interestingly, when it comes to what leaders value in their talent, while 71% said technical or programming abilities, and this is specifically for skills related to entry-level employees that need to work with AI agents, 83% said that it's about adaptability and continuous learning.

Now, there are still tons of challenges and barriers to demonstrating ROI.

58% point to risk considerations such as data privacy and cyber.

59% said that they have difficulty quantifying indirect or long-term benefit.

62% see skills gaps.

And 65% are having difficulty scaling use cases.

And many of these are the stories and themes that a recent study from Ryder, in collaboration with Workplace Intelligence, found.

Ryder CEO May Habib sums up the difference between last year's version of the study and this year's like this.

When we looked at the data last year, the defining theme was tension.

Budgets were climbing and pilots were multiplying, but the reality on the ground was messy.

Ownership was murky, IT and the C-suite were locked in a constant tug of war, and frustration grew as that massive investments hit a wall.

Only 12 months later, the tension has evolved into something much more consequential.