To capture value from AI, CHROs must help their organisations successfully evolve work itself – not just the workforce – according to business and technology insights company Gartner.
A July 2025 Gartner survey of 1 973 managers found that business units that redesign how work gets done, rather than just deploying AI and encouraging employees to use it, are twice as likely to exceed revenue goals.
At the recent Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo, analysts discussed some of the challenges organisations face in finding return on investment (ROI) in their AI initiatives.
“Organisations are looking to AI to achieve growth at the lowest possible cost, yet only one in five AI initiatives achieves measurable ROI – and just one in 50 delivers disruptive value,” says Harsh Kundulli, vice-president analyst in the Gartner HR practice.
Organisations are changing work in three key ways:
- Augmenting existing work with AI to make it faster and more accurate.
- Re-engineering entire workflows and functions to make work more efficient with AI.
- Inventing entirely new, AI-based ways of working that dramatically improve scale and disrupt markets.
“HR is uniquely positioned to partner with IT and business leaders to ensure AI investments translate into business outcomes,” says Katie Sutherland, director, advisory in the Gartner HR practice. “CHROs can help employees figure out how to get value from AI, anticipate the talent implications of AI redesigns and ensure the organisation has the necessary talent to invent new ways of working.”
Augment: Guide AI adoption toward business challenges
Gartner research shows that employees are using AI, but haven’t figured out how to generate real value. Among 3 029 employees surveyed by Gartner in July 2025, while only 3% were AI detractors who actively avoid AI, only 3% were AI superstars who consistently get value from it.
The key to shifting employees from AI users to AI value creators is for HR to guide them to the highest potential opportunities.
HR and IT should work together to create role-specific AI guidelines or co-lead AI workflow workshops. The July Gartner survey found that, with guidance, 15% of employees become AI superstars – defined by their mindset toward AI, how often they use it, and how much value they derive from it.
Re-engineer: Plan for the work, not just the workforce
Work re-engineering is happening opportunistically in pockets in many organisations as AI matures, without an enterprisewide strategy or direct HR involvement. Uncoordinated redesigns often create lasting ripple effects – such as the elimination of entry-level roles – which deplete the long-term talent pipeline. HR must help leaders better plan for the ways work will change and anticipate talent implications as AI takes on more work.
CHROs should work with executives to establish principles that guide redesign efforts while evolving workforce planning to identify the top two-to-three redesigns needed for every function across the organisation. With this insight into the future organisational design, HR should concentrate its efforts on supporting the work re-engineering projects with the greatest business impact and talent implications.
Invent: Build a path for employees to move into AI growth areas
Agentic AI promises to transform who does work and how it gets done. Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI. However, even if both human and AI readiness are high, Gartner predicts that less than 1% of jobs in the US will be lost to AI through 2028.
CHROs must work with C-suite peers to reset leader expectations on AI’s maturity and establish ways to sense when AI is ready to take on a larger share of work. Job demand is already shifting toward AI growth areas and there isn’t enough talent in the marketplace with the skills to fill these jobs. HR’s immediate role in inventing new ways of working is creating a clear pathway to help more employees transition into growth areas.