Key Takeaways
- The companies most able to use AI in a recent study saw labor productivity gains of 163%
- AI is impacting roles in different ways: creating “professionalized” roles where it’s a force multiplier, and “democratized” roles where it makes a role easier to perform
- Human skills such as leadership, judgement, and creativity are becoming more desirable in the age of AI, which sets up a new kind of landscape for entry-level workers
The companies most exposed to AI achieved labor productivity gains of 163% in a new study, significantly leapfrogging other businesses.
Within the labor market, AI is creating two different kinds of roles. “Professionalized” roles, where AI acts more as a force multiplier, are seeing a greater growth in hiring and wages compared to “democratized” roles, where AI makes a role easier to perform.
Companies are changing the requirements of roles as AI continues to sweep the workplace. This is most evident in entry-level roles, where human skills such as judgement and creativity are becoming more desirable.
The Companies Most Able to Use AI Are Pulling Ahead
Companies most exposed to AI, dubbed “super-star companies,” have seen labor productivity growth of 163% relative to 2018, in the 2026 PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer. These companies are in the top 20% of the most AI-exposed companies overall.
Companies operating within the most AI-exposed sectors recorded a 34% growth in productivity in 2025 compared to 2018, in contrast to the 24% recorded for the companies least able to use AI.
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Likewise, headcount growth at the most AI-exposed companies is higher than the least exposed companies. Companies with more exposure saw 52% growth, compared to the 36% seen by those with less exposure.
AI is Creating Two Types of Roles
PwC reports that AI is creating a “two-track” labor market, consisting of “professionalized” and “democratized” roles.
For “professionalized” roles, AI acts as a force multiplier, allowing the expert to accomplish more than they ordinarily would. These roles include radiologists and recruiters. On the other hand, in “democratized” roles, AI evens the playing field, making a role easier for non-experts to perform. These roles include IT service managers or medical secretaries.
Overall, the study finds “professionalized” roles are seeing greater wage and headcount growth, with twice the amount of available jobs and 42% faster salary growth compared to “democratized” roles.
AI skills such as prompt engineering are also becoming increasingly more desirable. Jobs that require specific AI skills are growing roughly eight times as fast as the overall jobs market, and the average wage premium for AI skills has risen to 62%, up from 57% the previous year.
Increase in Human Skills Required for Roles
Although leaders are no longer warning about an AI jobs apocalypse, the technology is changing and reshaping the skills needed to thrive in the workplace. PwC found human skills, such as judgement, creativity, and leadership are becoming more desirable.
This is particularly evident within entry-level hiring. Based on 2.4 million entry-level jobs in the US, those exposed mostly to AI are seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level human skills such as leadership or face-to-face interactions. Job openings for these roles have grown 35% since 2019, while other entry level roles have shrunk by 10%.
“The companies seeing the greatest returns on AI are using it to amplify human expertise, accelerate innovation and create entirely new sources of value. As a result, they are pulling further ahead on productivity and growth than companies that focus primarily on automation.” – Joe Atkinson, Global Chief AI Officer at PwC
These findings suggest human skills and retaining that “human touch” remain critical in the age of AI, and that graduates entering the workforce for the first time will be tested on different grounds than they have been previously.
