‘Fluency without judgment simply helps an organization make mistakes faster’
Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is quietly wearing down the skill executives say matters most: critical thinking, according to an IBM report.
The research surveyed 1,500 chief human resources officers (CHROs) alongside 8,800 employees worldwide.
According to the study, 71% of CHROs identify the ability to supervise, validate and override AI outputs as the workforce's most essential skill, yet only 38% of employees agree. Sixty per cent of employees said AI is eroding their skills, and critical thinking was the capability most often cited as declining.
Geneviève Bich, Vice President - Human Resources (CHRO) at METRO, based in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a board member, framed the stakes for HR broadly: "AI is about enterprise transformation. It's about future of work. It's about competencies. It's about leadership. It's much more about all of this than about technology."
The erosion problem HR can't ignore
Enterprises are not ignoring the skills problem outright: 80% have a reskilling roadmap in place. But a roadmap addresses skill gaps, meaning the new competencies people need to use AI tools. Skill erosion is different: it describes capabilities employees already have quietly fading as AI absorbs more of the thinking work that once built them.
Nearly half of organizations – 46% – do not involve the CHRO when AI strategy is defined, the study found. Employee confidence in AI-enabled decisions rose in 63% of organizations where CHROs shared responsibility for defining which decisions stay human-led, compared with just 19% where they did not.
Statistics Canada's (StatCan) most recent data shows the share of Canadian businesses reporting AI use in producing goods or delivering services reached 19.2% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 6.1% two years earlier – nearly tripling. Data analytics was the most common application, at 36.6%, while 40.0% of businesses said AI was simply not relevant to their operations.
Why is judgment becoming HR's job to protect?
Dr. Amit Das, Director and Chief Human Resources Officer at Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. based in India, put the stakes bluntly: "Fluency without judgment simply helps an organization make mistakes faster," according to The Times of India. He also warned that "the real risk is the quiet erosion of the experiences through which people learn to think."
Only 23% of organizations are increasing entry-level hiring, while executives named experienced individual contributors and first-line managers – not early-career staff – as their priority investment. Some Canadian HR teams have started reworking how supervised exception handling gets built back into junior roles, a shift addressed in this overview of common pitfalls HR leaders face when deploying AI.
Nickle LaMoreaux, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at IBM Corporation, based in Armonk, New York, framed the moment as a turning point: "AI is changing not only how work gets done, but where people can contribute the greatest value. CHROs have a critical role to play in redesigning the workplace of the future so people can focus on the areas where they can have the greatest impact."
What does this mean for Canadian HR practice?
Many Canadian organizations are still building foundational AI governance rather than addressing skill erosion. Employers navigating fragmented rollouts across recruitment, benefits and performance tracking are documenting their approach, as captured in this monthly roundup tracking how AI adoption is reshaping Canadian HR functions.
StatCan found that among Canadian businesses using AI, 44.4% made changes to training or staffing practices as a result, with larger firms far more likely to retrain existing employees than smaller ones. The IBM report's recommendation for CHROs is similar: treat skill erosion as a talent risk on par with attrition, identifying which roles are losing exposure to analysis or exception handling, then rebuilding it through rotations and coaching.
A compensation dimension is emerging too. As demand grows for employees who can supervise and validate AI output, some Canadian employers are already paying a premium for that capability.
