In 2025, MIT CISR research examined how knowledge workers integrate AI into their work and the implications for the employee experience. We found that as AI reshapes workflows, the skills that differentiate human contribution shift faster than organizations can respond through traditional training. Periodic upskilling is failing to keep pace.
This year, we will study how organizations and employees are closing the gap between rapidly changing skill requirements and workforce readiness. We will focus on three challenges: sensing when employee capabilities are becoming misaligned with evolving work demands, embedding skills development into everyday work, and helping employees shed established professional identities to embrace new contributions. By investigating organizations that have reduced the lag between requirements and readiness, we seek to surface practical approaches that improve organizational agility and the employee experience.
This study will rely on interviews with leaders and knowledge workers, complemented by exploratory qualitative case vignettes from organizations pioneering new approaches to skills development.
We will focus on the following research questions:
- How are organizations embedding skills development into the flow of work to enable learning at the moment of need?
- How do organizations detect skill misalignment as roles and workflows evolve, and translate those signals into targeted opportunities for growth?
- How do organizations support expertise transitions, including moving beyond established professional identities?
- As AI takes on a greater share of tasks, how do employees decide which distinctly human strengths to develop?
This project is a continuation of MIT CISR's 2025 research project "Work Reworked: Succeeding with Human-AI Collaboration."
SEEKING: We are seeking interviews with leaders and knowledge workers in organizations that are actively rethinking how skills development happens—particularly those experimenting with AI-enabled learning in the flow of work, internal talent marketplaces, peer learning and mentorship models, or new approaches to measuring and signaling skill growth.
CONTACT: Nick van der Meulen
