World Economic Forum: Scaling AI Requires Trust and Governance
AI continues to reshape industries, pushing companies to reconfigure how work gets done. Businesses are embedding AI directly into their operations, shifting away from surface-level automation to complete organisational redesign.
A new paper from the World Economic Forum (WEF), AI at Work: From Productivity Hacks to Organisational Transformation, explores how more than 20 major technology companies are adapting to the age of intelligent work. The findings were released during the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, where leading firms and global figures gathered in Switzerland to discuss key global developments.
At the summit, 25 companies – including Cisco, ServiceNow, Pegasystems, and Wipro – confirmed a joint commitment to make AI tools more accessible, improve global digital skills, and open new job pathways in AI-driven roles. WEF expects this initiative to reach at least 120 million people by 2030.
AI Reshapes Workflows
Three years since the launch of ChatGPT, AI’s role in business processes moves far beyond basic automation. Organisations now rely on AI to manage tasks such as contract analysis, fraud detection, and streamlining healthcare systems. In one example highlighted by WEF, a company uncovered US$120 million in tax savings by using AI to examine regulatory frameworks and months of tax records. What once took weeks can now be completed in just three days. Another company reduced a 30-minute lab order process to just a few seconds, reclaiming 30,000 working hours each year.
This type of transformation, WEF argues, only happens when AI is integrated deeply into workflows. Nathan Jokel, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Alliances at Cisco, states: “Across multiple industries, we already see gains as AI enables individual employees to complete tasks more quickly and accurately. However, the bulk of the opportunity is yet ahead of us.”
Scaling AI Requires Trust and Governance
While AI adoption grows, WEF makes clear that trust remains essential for wider implementation, particularly in regulated industries like banking, healthcare, and insurance, where compliance and oversight are not optional. Steve Rudolph, Vice President of Strategy and Transformation at Pegasystems, emphasizes: “AI serves different purposes at design time versus run time. At design time, AI drives innovation and creativity – variability in outputs is acceptable as we explore possibilities. At run time in operational environments, especially in regulated industries, we need predictability and traceability.”
WEF concludes that the transformation of work is already in motion and irreversible. The priority now is ensuring that it evolves as a collaborative partnership between humans and intelligent systems.
Career Structures Evolve with Hybrid AI-Human Teams
As AI transforms how work is done, it is also shifting career development. WEF reports that AI has the potential to compress traditional career timelines, allowing junior staff to contribute at higher levels much earlier. Intelligence tools, such as copilots and knowledge assistants, let less experienced workers participate in meetings and decisions that were previously the domain of senior staff. This has implications for mid-level roles, which may face more disruption than entry-level jobs.
Hala Zeine, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at ServiceNow, explains: “Looking ahead, we will work with AI to support us in decision-making, take on repetitive but necessary tasks, and allow us to focus on meaningful work. It is inevitable – we will see org charts incorporate AI agents as formal team members alongside humans, assigning them defined responsibilities and performance metrics, which signals a clear shift towards hybrid human-AI teams.”
The shift is not just about productivity. AI is changing the culture of work by reducing repetitive tasks, improving engagement, and allowing more time for creative problem-solving. Some companies also use AI to tailor training and internal communications, which can improve workplace cohesion and morale.
Commitment to Creating Economic Opportunities for All
At Davos, 25 global firms endorsed WEF’s “Commitment to Creating Economic Opportunities for All in the Intelligent Age.” The commitment rests on three pillars:
- Access: Provide affordable or free access to AI tools, accounting for language, cultural, and socioeconomic differences.
- Skills: Develop digital and human capabilities that support workers in AI-augmented roles.
- Job Pathways: Create structured routes into AI-related careers through apprenticeships, skills-based recruitment, and local initiatives.
Ajay Bhaskar, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Wipro, states: “The tech industry does not just innovate gadgets or solutions – it shapes the future direction of economies and societies. As AI becomes deeply embedded in our lives, it is imperative for the sector to be proactive and lead the way in developing the broader workforce in the context of a Human+AI future.”
