#AI adoption

#AI adoption

Hiring in 2026 won't look much like hiring even two years ago. If you don't pay attention, you will get left behind. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. I've written executive and board résumés for the last 10 years. I've never seen so much change in candidate sourcing happen so quickly. CEO priorities and expectations have shifted. AI is reshaping how candidates get surfaced. Résumé sameness has skyrocketed. Candidate shortlist cycles have accelerated.

Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, value from AI investments has been slow to emerge and worries that we're in an AI bubble are growing. Yet according to responses to this year's annual AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey, companies are undaunted. Virtually every data and AI leader participating in this year's survey believes that AI is a high priority for their organization, has plans to spend more on it, and confirms that their company is getting measurable business value from their AI investments.

In response to a question from Nextgov/FCW about how the initiative is helping to bring more AI tools into government, GSA Chief AI Officer and Data Scientist Zach Whitman said that, for those "wanting to see some level of adoption for experimentation purposes on low-risk use cases, this has provided a procurement pathway for a lot of these agencies who may have had early, light contact with some of these technologies."

Nearly all corporate workers face mental health challenges at work. And in 2025, unprecedented, lightning-fast developments in AI, unending widespread layoffs and broader political turmoil roiled workers' emotional well-being. Many workers have been left burned out, anxious, and filled with dread. But it's not all bad-in some corners of the workforce, each seismic disruption this year brought with it discourse around the problem, as well as some leaders and workers staying committed to safeguarding mental health in the face of constant change.

For the past three years, AI 's breakout moment has happened almost entirely through text. We type a prompt, get a response, and move to the next task. While this intuitive interaction style turned chatbots into a household tool overnight, it barely scratches the surface of what the most advanced technology of our time can actually do. This disconnect has created a significant gap in how consumers utilize AI.

"AI can't improve what it can't see," Smith said.

Those who follow me on LinkedIn may have gotten the impression that I'm against AI. Nothing is further from the truth. What I'm really against is the notion that you can't do design without AI so you either learn AI or you're doomed. Using AI is of course useful for designers. But so is knowing how to use Figma and I put both of those in the same bucket of tactical skills.