A massive 91% of leaders wouldn’t replace their teams with AI, even if the technology were to make it possible to do so.
This is according to the newly published 2026 State of AI at Work report from Udacity (part of Accenture), which analyses how the AI economy is impacting org structures, workforce strategy, and business outcomes.
The study also finds that leaders overwhelmingly value the human premium in the AI economy.
When asked why they wouldn’t replace their entire teams with AI:
- 62% said that AI couldn’t create the new products and services their customers will want in the future;
- 53% said their customers prefer to work with humans;
- 49% said the security and privacy risks are too large;
- 38% said they worried they wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of their competitors who are using the combination of humans and AI; and
- 30% said that they just preferred to work with humans and that the quality of their products/services would go down with an AI-only workforce.
Leaders say their ideal workforce is a mix of 64,96% internal employees, 19,52% AI agents and 15,52% contractors.
By comparison, at the start of 2025, the mix was 73,95% internal employees, 8,49% AI agents and 17,55% contractors.
Despite some earlier reports of AI projects not returning a tangible ROI, 49% of leaders now say that AI projects have generated a profit for their companies.
In the current workforce climate, 67% of leaders prefer to invest in upskilling their current employees rather than paying a premium for a new hire who already has the skills.