The 2026 of business leaders: flexibility, AI and empathy for growth

The new year has just begun and it is still time to draw up forecasts and trends that will characterise the work of managers in the coming months. The State of the C-Suite report by International Workplace Group (IWG), for example, portrays a management that is aware of growth opportunities, but determined to govern them with stringent financial discipline. While 95 per cent of CEOs declare themselves confident about the future, all top executives identify cost control as a top priority, to the extent that Chief Financial Officers expect an average budget reduction of 10 per cent. An apparent paradox, to all intents and purposes, which rests on the assumption of 'doing more with less' and which finds two effective answers in two levers that have now become central to corporate strategies, namely artificial intelligence and the hybrid work.

According to estimates by IWG, the adoption of AI can reduce operating costs by between 20 and 40 per cent, while labour flexibility can cut real estate costs by up to 55 per cent. Once freed up, these resources would be reallocated to investments that are considered strategic: for 83% of the C-Suite respondents, the main areas of expenditure by 2026 are AI, automation and advanced digital productivity tools. In fact, the possibility of making financial efficiency is not the only area of intervention of AI, in view of the fact that (as confirmed by previous research by IWG itself) this technology allows workers to save an average of 55 minutes per day, giving back value-added time. The change in the way of working will therefore also have an impact on the way offices are used. 83 per cent of CEOs have already moved away from the idea of the head office as the organisation's sole centre of operations to embrace the idea of a network of distributed offices that can help managers address multiple needs, from reducing commuting to accessing wider talent pools to increasing employee satisfaction (and productivity). It should therefore come as no surprise that, by 2026, more than half of all Chief Executive Officers favour short-term leases and coworking solutions.

While artificial intelligence and flexibility reshape the organisation of work, human capital remains - always and everywhere - the real critical factor. The HR Barometer 2026 by the multinational operations consultancy agap2 identifies four drivers destined to drive the job market: artificial intelligence, well-being, green transition and talent shortage. And it is in the search for a (complex) balance between these four factors that the C-Suite will be called upon to measure itself in the coming months.

The starting point is well-known: the demand for technical skills is growing rapidly, with a particular concentration on highly specialised figures such as AI and machine learning engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts, industrial automation and renewable energy specialists. We are talking about roles that are central to supporting digital innovation and the energy transition, but increasingly difficult to find. The projections cited by agap2 confirm in this regard that Italy needs around 20,000 engineers per year to fill a structural gap that risks becoming not only a critical business issue but also a brake on the competitiveness of the country's system.

In this context, artificial intelligence is not read as an occupational threat and a replacement component, but as an enabler of new forms of collaboration between humans (people) and technologies (chatbots and robots). Machines support routine activities, while professionals are required to continuously reskill and upskill in order to develop the skills necessary to govern the change dictated by a digitisation process that will become more and more advanced.