According to the PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer 2026, artificial intelligence is changing which skills employers value most. The study analyzed more than one billion job advertisements across six continents and concludes that AI has created a bifurcated labor market: on one side are ‘‘deep-specialist’’ roles where AI automates routine tasks and human expertise and judgement become central; on the other are ‘‘democratized’’ roles where technology makes work more accessible, sometimes to non-specialists.
Specific effects: pay growth, headcount and demand for ‘‘senior’’ skills
- In AI-exposed deep-specialist roles — for example radiologists or recruiting specialists — there are twice as many open positions and 42% faster wage growth compared with democratized roles (such as IT service managers or medical secretaries).
- In the United States sample of 2.4 million entry-level jobs, positions most affected by AI are now seven times more likely to require traditionally higher-level human competencies (leadership, creativity, communication). These ‘‘seniorized’’ entry-level roles have risen 35% since 2019, while traditional junior positions have fallen by 10%.
Oltyán Gábor, head of the Data & AI Platform implementation team at PwC Hungary, notes that AI’s impact varies by seniority: for junior employees it mainly boosts productivity, enabling faster and more confident outputs, whereas for senior staff the effect shows up more in the quality and consistency of outputs — precisely where human judgement is most valuable.
Firm-level divergence: the ‘‘superstar’’ effect
PwC’s report finds widening differences between firms that make heavy use of AI and those that do not. Companies in the most AI-exposed sectors posted a 34% productivity increase in 2025 compared with 2018; by contrast, firms using AI least saw just a 24% gain. Within the most AI-exposed group a clear ‘‘superstar’’ effect emerges: the top 20% of those firms achieved an average 163% increase in labor productivity versus 2018, roughly five times the average for all AI-exposed companies.
Oltyán emphasizes that this gap is driven not only by technology but by organizational AI maturity: less mature organizations often apply AI to existing inefficient processes, while mature organizations adopt solutions faster and — according to PwC’s experience — can realize 3–5x ROI on the same investment.
Headcount growth and wage premium
- Firms most exposed to AI saw headcount grow 52% in 2025 compared with 2018, versus 36% for the least exposed firms.
- The global wage premium for AI skills rose to 62% in 2026 (up from 57% in 2025). The premium varies by sector: it may reach 118% in parts of consumer markets but is around 16% in government and the public sector.
Jobs requiring specialized AI skills — such as prompt engineering or machine learning — have expanded markedly: these roles grew about 69%, roughly eight times faster than the overall job market’s 9% increase. That pace is nearly double the 2024 figure.
By industry, technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) saw the largest growth at 11%, professional services grew 6%, while healthcare recorded less than 1% growth for AI-related roles.
Oltyán warns that the 62% global AI wage premium should serve as a wake-up call for Hungarian employers: AI-skilled workers increasingly operate in a global labor market, so domestic firms must compete not only on pay but also on career development, interesting AI projects and internal training ecosystems, otherwise they risk unsustainable wage pressure and higher turnover.
Organizational takeaways
Péter Lajtai, PwC Hungary partner responsible for Data & AI, says a clearer dividing line is emerging between talent and value-creation models. The best-performing companies are those that use AI to augment human expertise, accelerate innovation and create entirely new value streams rather than focusing mainly on automation.
Lajtai adds that AI has already replaced some routine tasks that used to serve as on-the-job learning, so organizations need to rethink talent development. Early skills training and targeted reskilling/upskilling are necessary if employees are to thrive in the changed environment.
Practical implications
PwC’s Barometer indicates that companies that deeply integrate AI and raise workforce AI maturity grow headcount faster, pay more for AI competencies and capture larger productivity gains. For Hungarian firms, the message is clear: investing in internal training and increasing organizational AI maturity is a strategic advantage today.
