Aerospace, tech, and pharma are among the sectors where AI will most transform work.

From aerospace to tech, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and retail, the wave of change brought by artificial intelligence will transform corporate roles and jobs. How? And above all, how are companies responding? The Adecco Group attempted to answer this question, surveying 2,000 managers from 17 countries and 13 sectors in its "Business Leaders 2025" study. The vast majority, 63%, say workers will need to acquire new skills and redefine their roles within the company to adapt to the evolution of AI. The flipside, however, is that most companies still lack a concrete strategy capable of addressing the changes brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI), despite the fact that it is now clear that it will be one of the most important factors in redefining the labor market.

The changing roles appear to be particularly significant, globally, in the aerospace and defense sector (67%), followed by tech (62%), pharmaceutical and healthcare (59%), automotive (59%) and retail/consumer goods (52%), where expectations towards workers appear to be particularly marked.

While there is growing awareness of the potential of AI to support work, a third (27%) of Italian companies admit they still lack a clear strategy for its use within their organizations, a better figure than the global average of 34%. Also globally, the greatest difficulties are seen in sectors such as energy and utilities (41%) and consumer goods (39%), where the lack of AI policies is above average. "These data highlight the dual impact of digital transformation on the labor market: on the one hand, a strong awareness among leaders of the need to evolve, and on the other, a real difficulty in implementing concrete strategies," comments Roberto Pancaldi, VP HR Adecco Italy & Country Head of HR The Adecco Group Italy. In this scenario, if companies want to seize these opportunities, they must "accelerate training, with targeted investments and by promoting a corporate culture geared towards continuous skills development. Only in this way will it be possible to bridge the increasingly marked skills mismatch and build truly future-ready organizations."

In this global context, our country stands out from others for its investments in understanding and developing technical skills, so much so that 45% of Italian companies report investing in data analytics tools to identify and address mismatches, compared to a modest 33% internationally. At the sector level, globally, trade and consumer goods (41%) are the leading sectors, followed by the automotive and energy sectors, which are less active (33% and 28%, respectively).