AI-focused companies are setting new benchmarks for talent costs and tooling investments, pushing all leaders to rethink the way they build teams and deploy people spend to achieve their business goals. As automation accelerates human productivity, the very nature of workforce spend is shifting toward new skill sets, more fluid team structures, and continued change.

This session combines experienced perspectives with hard data on the major shifts in investment across skill‑based roles, rising people costs, and dynamic workforce modeling and explores how each of these trends will change people spend strategy in 2026 and beyond.