PwC’s 2026 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey finds a widening divide in AI-related skills and access among employees. The survey collected responses from 49,364 workers across 48 countries and regions; data were gathered in May and June 2026.
Key findings
- 51% of respondents say they have access to the learning and development needed for their jobs, down from 59% a year earlier.
- 64% used AI tools at work over the past 12 months, a 10 percentage-point increase year on year.
- Daily use of generative AI rose from 14% to 22%.
- 59% of workers expect to use AI more in their jobs over the next year.
Who benefits?
Those who use AI daily report tangible advantages: 68% of daily AI users are confident in their long-term job security versus 57% of non-daily users. Daily users are more likely to initiate promotion discussions (+12 percentage points), trust senior leadership more (+15 percentage points), and feel more confident about learning new skills (+21 percentage points).
A new fault line in the workforce
PwC segments workers into four groups:
- Front-runners (14%): possess rare, in-demand expertise and high AI competence.
- Innovators (18%): skills are less rare but they extract more value from their work using AI.
- Key players (11%): valuable, hard-to-replace expertise; early in adopting AI.
- “Engine room workers” (56%): the organization’s backbone; their skills are less in demand and they are at early stages of AI adoption.
The survey stresses employers should pay particular attention to the “engine room” group, who make up over half the workforce yet receive less recognition, fewer company-provided AI tools, and less access to training while performing the organization’s day-to-day tasks.
Access and training both matter
A complementary PwC analysis in Hungary found only 27% of employees have company-provided AI tools, pushing many to rely on personal or free solutions. PwC experts warn that the barrier is not only skill development but also access: without tools, guidance and opportunities to embed AI into daily work, benefits will accrue to a narrow segment of workers.
Growing pressures and concerns
Workers face financial, workplace and technological pressures: one third (33%) reported no savings at the end of the month, an 8 percentage-point decline compared with the prior year. About 29% feel their bargaining position at work is weaker than three years ago; the proportion is 10 percentage points higher among fully remote workers.
Economic uncertainty is seen as the largest workplace risk by 57% of respondents, while 44% worry that AI will take over more tasks. Generation Z reported higher concern across examined areas.
Among those who have experienced change, 58% say there has been more reshuffling in the past year than before; 27% report that exhaustion or burnout has hurt their performance. A majority had to apply new skills at work over the past year, and 40% say this was to a large or very large extent.
Faster change at leadership levels
More than half of senior leaders (51%) and 46% of mid-level managers reported using new skills in their roles over the past year. The rate was 29% for non-managerial employees and 38% for entry-level workers.
Recommendations from PwC
PwC experts argue employers must invest not only in upskilling but also in providing access to AI tools and integrating the technology into daily workflows. Cserjés-Kopándi Ildikó and Csornai Zsuzsanna of PwC Hungary emphasize that access is at least as important as training: without company-provided tools and clear guidance, AI’s benefits will remain concentrated among a small group.
Mezei Szabolcs, partner at PwC Hungary, warns of a real risk that a persistent fault line will form in the labour market: workers with in-demand skills and advanced AI capabilities are increasingly confident, more mobile, and better positioned to build their careers, while many others lag behind.
Methodology
The PwC 2026 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey polled 49,364 workers across 48 countries and regions and 29 sectors. Data collection took place in May–June 2026. Responses are weighted to reflect the gender and age distributions of worker populations in the surveyed countries, supporting broad representativeness.
