How AI is transforming people management through new roles and skills

In many sectors, and in the financial sector in particular, artificial intelligence is entering a more mature phase in its adoption journey, beginning to become part of teams’ day-to-day work, processes and tasks. This marks the transition from digitalisation to the AI-Digital Workforce, a model in which human capital, intelligent automation and decision-support systems coexist within the same organisational processes. And it is one of the phenomena analysed in Cetif’s “Digital Trends 2026” report, according to which readiness depends not only on the availability of technology, but on organisations’ ability to integrate data, skills, security, governance and a culture of change. In this new landscape, Advanced Analytics and Digital Claims are among the areas most exposed to change, precisely because they are built on processes and infrastructure that are already relatively mature.

The real shift, however, concerns work and people. Virtual assistants, knowledge management tools, personalised learning platforms and analytics for skills management are gradually gaining ground within organisations and work teams, driving a change in the scope of people management.

With the advent of artificial intelligence in day-to-day activities, the concept of efficiency is being interpreted in a new light, as roles, responsibilities, workflows and the ways in which people and virtual assistants collaborate are changing. “The way we envisage and organise work is changing,” observes Chiara Frigerio, Professor of Business Organisation and Secretary-General of Cetif, at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – “because AI is becoming an ever-greater part of day-to-day operations, helping people find information, automating repetitive tasks, managing internal knowledge more effectively and making decisions with richer information support.” The implications of this transformation process naturally extend to people management, which – as Frigerio goes on to say – “must begin to consider not only people’s roles, but also how these roles evolve when supported by intelligent tools”. The shift towards the new paradigm of ‘working with AI’ therefore entails a practical reorganisation, which, as the CETIF expert explains in detail, translates into the need to ‘redesign responsibilities, in-house technological skills, workflows and ways of collaborating’. Some tasks can be accelerated by technology, whilst others require supervision, interpretation and judgement; the crux of the matter “is to build a model in which AI enhances the quality of work, without blurring the lines as to who makes decisions and who exercises control”.

If roles change, the way we conceive of skills must necessarily change too. “Digital skills,” Frigerio emphasises in this regard, “remain important, as does the ability to read and use data, but when AI is integrated into work processes, so-called ‘metaskills’ also become crucial – that is, the skills that enable us to learn continuously, to understand the context, to ask the right questions, and to critically evaluate the outputs generated by intelligent systems’.” This point is particularly relevant because, whilst AI can produce rapid and convincing answers, a person is still needed who can interpret them and place them in the correct context. Rethinking training, by expanding the boundaries of learning beyond traditional one-off programmes, with the aim of supporting the day-to-day use of generative tools and intelligent models, consequently becomes a priority.

Companies – according to the Cetif lecturer – will therefore need to adopt models of continuous learning that are more structured, more personalised and closely aligned with real-world work. The people who make up the organisation, for their part, must understand the applications, limitations and responsibilities of artificial intelligence, whilst developing technical, behavioural and managerial skills. All this without succumbing to the ‘easy’ concern of staff cuts. ‘I don’t believe,’ adds Frigerio on this point, ‘that we are heading towards a replacement of skills, but rather an addition of technical, soft and meta-skills that must necessarily work together.’ And the figures from the “Digital Trends 2026” report paint a picture of an organisation that is already moving in this direction, with 87 per cent of specialists in HR data analytics working within the Human Resources department, whilst 63 per cent of organisations have already introduced cross-functional teams into their workforce.