Gartner Says CHROs Must Become an Enterprise Leader of How Work Should Change in the AI Era

To capture value from AI, CHROs must help their organizations successfully evolve work itself, not just the workforce, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

A July 2025 Gartner survey of 1,973 managers found that business units that redesign how work gets done, rather than just deploy AI and encourage employees to use it, are twice as likely to exceed revenue goals.

During the opening keynote today at Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo, taking place here through Wednesday, Gartner analysts discussed some of the challenges organizations face in finding return on investment (ROI) in their AI initiatives.

“Organizations are looking to AI to achieve growth, at the lowest possible cost, yet only one in five AI initiatives achieves measurable ROI, and just one in 50 delivers disruptive value,” said Harsh Kundulli, Vice President Analyst in the Gartner HR practice.

Organizations are changing work in three key ways:

• Augmenting existing work with AI to make it faster and more accurate 
• Reengineering entire workflows and functions to make work more efficient with AI 
• Inventing entirely new, AI-based ways of working that dramatically improve scale and disrupt markets 

“HR is uniquely positioned to partner with IT and business leaders to ensure AI investments translate into business outcomes,” said Katie Sutherland, Director, Advisory in the Gartner HR practice. “CHROs can help employees figure out how to get value from AI, anticipate the talent implications of AI redesigns and ensure the organization has the necessary talent to invent new ways of working.”

Gartner research shows that employees are using AI but haven’t figured out how to generate real value. Among 3,029 employees surveyed by Gartner in July 2025, while only 3% were AI detractors who actively avoid AI, only 3% were AI superstars who consistently get value from it. 

The key to shifting employees from AI users to AI value creators is for HR to guide them to the highest potential opportunities. HR and IT should work together to create role-specific AI guidelines or co-lead AI workflow workshops. The July Gartner survey found that, with guidance, 15% of employees become AI superstars – defined by their mindset toward AI, how often they use it, and how much value they derive from it. 

Work reengineering is happening opportunistically in pockets in many organizations as AI matures, without an enterprisewide strategy or direct HR involvement. Uncoordinated redesigns often create lasting ripple effects, such as the elimination of entry-level roles, which deplete the long-term talent pipeline. HR must help leaders better plan for the ways work will change and anticipate talent implications as AI takes on more work.

CHROs should work with executives to establish principles that guide redesign efforts while evolving workforce planning to identify the top two-to-three redesigns needed for every function across the organization. With this insight into the future organizational design, HR should concentrate its efforts on supporting the work reengineering projects with the greatest business impact and talent implications.

Agentic AI promises to transform who does work and how it gets done. Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI. However, even if both human and AI readiness are high, Gartner predicts that less than 1% of jobs in the US will be lost to AI through 2028.

CHROs must work with C-suite peers to reset leader expectations on AI’s maturity and establish ways to sense when AI is ready to take on a larger share of work. Job demand is already shifting toward AI growth areas and there isn’t enough talent in the marketplace with the skills to fill these jobs. HR’s immediate role in inventing new ways of working is creating a clear pathway to help more employees transition into growth areas. 

About Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo 

Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo is where CHROs and their leadership teams gather each year to reimagine their strategies through the lens of Gartner’s research-driven insights and expert advice on leadership and learning, employee experience, culture and change, talent acquisition and workforce planning, and HR technology. Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo is being held October 27-29 in Florida, and November 17-18 in Sydney. Follow news and updates from these events on LinkedIn using #GartnerHR.