AI redesigns jobs more than it cuts them: JLL
ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES — Amid widespread fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will slash jobs, a new global survey finds a majority of senior business leaders expect AI to reinvent roles — not eliminate them.
According to JLL’s 2026 Future of Work Survey of more than 2,200 C-suite leaders across 21 countries, 60% anticipate workforce growth rather than contraction as AI adoption accelerates.
Workforce growth, not cuts, defines AI-era expectations
Neil Murray, chief executive officer (CEO) of Real Estate Management Services at JLL, said what separates leading organizations is not technology spend. ‘Most forward-thinking leaders aren’t just buying technology; they are investing in their people,’ Murray said.
The survey — conducted across 21 countries from January through April 2026 — found that 60% of respondents believe AI will reinvent existing roles rather than replace workers outright. Yet only 15% of organizations have reached an AI optimization stage, while 46% remain in a monitoring or tracking phase and 40% are still analyzing impacts.
The gap between AI optimism and AI readiness defines the current state of workforce transformation for most organizations.
Integration gaps slow real-world adoption
‘Leading organizations are demonstrating deeper integration between real estate, HR, and technology to support strategies,’ said Peter Miscovich, Global Future of Work Leader at JLL, referring to the alignment of human resources (HR) and real estate decisions with AI adoption goals.
The survey found that 36% of leaders cite AI skills gaps as the top barrier to workforce transformation.
Only 31% of organizations are actively preparing physical spaces for human-AI collaboration, despite 78% expecting AI to significantly reshape their real estate portfolios.
Nearly half of all respondents cited advanced technology and AI support as their primary productivity strategy, even as 47% flagged cybersecurity and data privacy risks as a leading concern.
The majority of organizations have the AI ambition but lack the integrated systems needed to act on it.
As the workforce transformation implied by AI moves from theory to practice, business process outsourcing (BPO) providers are well placed to accelerate it. Offshore teams have long operated the kind of role-redesigned, task-distributed work structures the JLL survey describes as the hallmark of AI-advanced organizations.
For companies facing AI skills gaps and readiness deficits, BPO partnerships offer a direct path to the human-AI integration the JLL (jll.com) data identifies as the new competitive standard.
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Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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