Why exponential performance is now a leadership survival test 

Market volatility remains high. Growth is harder to generate. Margins are tighter. At the same time, boards and investors are pressing leaders to demonstrate tangible returns from AI investments that promised faster decisions, greater productivity, and long-term resilience. For many organizations, the gap between AI ambition and organizational readiness is widening just as expectations for returns are accelerating.

Yet the human system underpinning performance is weakening, not strengthening. Employee thriving has fallen from 66% in 2024 to just 44% in 2026—the lowest level since Mercer began tracking it. A depleted workforce cannot deliver exponential results, no matter how advanced the technology stack.

The problem is not a lack of ambition or technology. It’s that most organizations are still trying to deliver tomorrow’s performance using yesterday’s work models. This is why exponential performance is no longer an aspiration but the minimum viable response to volatility, AI acceleration, and rising people risk. And it’s why Global Talent Trends 2026 frames this moment so starkly: organizations must now solve the human–machine equation—how work is deliberately redesigned so human judgment and machine intelligence combine to create value at scale—or risk structural decline.

Across industries, three pressures are converging and amplifying one another. Together, they are reshaping performance expectations and placing new demands on how work is designed, governed, and enabled by HR.

Individually, each of these forces is manageable. Together, they expose a deeper constraint.

Most organizations are layering AI onto work systems that were never designed to absorb it: rigid roles, static job architectures, and decision rights optimized for stability rather than speed.

This helps explain a critical disconnect in the data.

Technology does not create performance on its own. Performance emerges from the interaction of people, skills, workflows, incentives, and risk.

In the future of work, value is unlocked not by replacing humans but by intentionally redesigning work so machine intelligence amplifies human judgment, creativity, and scale. Human–machine collaboration is now the performance frontier, and avoiding work redesign is a risk decision. If AI is layered onto unchanged roles, decision rights, and incentives, organizations may achieve faster activity but not better outcomes.

This shift fundamentally changes the leadership agenda. The Global Talent Trends 2026 data reveals a widening gap between ambition and readiness. While C-suite executives are prioritizing AI-enabled productivity and work redesign, many HR functions remain focused on optimizing existing processes rather than reshaping the work system itself.

At the same time, employees are increasingly anxious about AI. Some 36% say they would consider leaving their organization if they felt disadvantaged by unequal access to AI tools or training. A workforce that does not trust the transformation cannot sustain it.

In this environment, people risk has become enterprise risk. Talent, skills, trust, and adaptability now directly shape business outcomes—impacting execution speed, resilience, and investor confidence.

This is where HR’s role fundamentally changes—from steward of programs to architect of the work system itself, embedded in the decisions that shape performance and accountable for enabling human–machine capability at scale.

The organizations that will outperform in 2026 are not experimenting more but are redesigning with intent. They are moving from technology-first thinking to work-first transformation. They are treating AI as an amplifier of human capability and not a substitute for it. And they recognize that scalable transformation depends on scalable human capability.

Together, these shifts outline a clear path from experimentation to intentional, scaled transformation—one where people risk is recognized as business risk and where the human advantage becomes the decisive source of workforce resilience and sustained performance.

This is how incremental gains become exponential.

Exponential performance will not emerge by accident. It requires leaders—particularly HR and enterprise leaders—to redesign work systems, reframe talent strategies around skills, and build cultures of AI enablement grounded in trust, transparency, and equity.

The question facing organizations in 2026 is whether leaders will deliberately architect human–machine collaboration for sustained business value or continue digitizing work models that no longer work.

As organizations plan major operating and workforce redesigns in 2026, the Global Talent Trends report explores how organizations are making this shift, helping leaders assess where work redesign will deliver the greatest performance returns, and where people risk is already constraining growth.

In a year where incremental gains are no longer enough, the ability to deliberately orchestrate human–machine collaboration will define which organizations move ahead.