HR leaders brace for AI-fuelled innovation in 2026

“Let's just tear it down to the studs.”

That’s how Sara Cooper, chief people officer at Jobber, is framing 2026: as a reset year for HR in the face of accelerating AI adoption and shifting market pressures.

Cooper says her team has just finished its strategy planning, and the mandate is clear: “If we had to start over again — knowing what we know now, having the tools that we have at our disposal, being able to build our own tools because of AI — what would we do different if we had to build it from scratch?” she says.

The CPO positions 2026 as “a year to experiment and a year to create… There's nothing sacred; there's nothing holding us back — and stuff is going to fail.”

Across organizations, that kind of rethinking is increasingly tied to technology, talent and leadership — and to the way AI is reshaping everything from call centres to job design, judging by discussions with Canadian HR leaders about the year ahead.

Using AI for HR responses

While Cooper recognizes concerns around AI, she highlights the potential if HR learns to “work with it properly” and not be afraid of it: “Being able to use this technology to our advantage and create something really cool with it, that to me is super exciting for 2026.”

She acknowledges that many managers already turn to public AI tools on their own.

“We know this is happening. We know that managers or people leaders, instead of coming to us for advice, can just tap into ChatGPT and say, ‘How would you handle this problem?’”

Rather than attempt to halt that behaviour, Cooper’s people team is building an internal alternative, with a tool tentatively called Jobber Coach.

“We are putting in all of our policies — everything around surrounding people at Jobber and how we want to show up as people leaders in the company — and training it to answer those questions,” she says.

“If they're going to do it anyway, let's direct them to the Jobber resource that is going to give them the information that aligns with our values and how we would handle certain things.”

Agentic AI and next wave of organizational design

AI adoption will become “an absolute priority for 2026,” not just in terms of purchasing tools but in ensuring “people are actually getting people to use it and seeing the return on investment of AI,” says Holly Ackert, executive director in People and Change Consulting at KPMG.

Ackert describes a two-layer approach. First, there is “a push to solidify the HR technology foundation,” including upgrading legacy systems to reduce administrative burden, duplication of effort and to improve reporting.

On top of that, “some of the more mature organizations are truly thinking about ‘How is AI and strategic AI adoption now being embedded in our processes?’” she says.

Ackert points to an emerging focus on how humans and AI will share work in the years ahead, in terms of embedding AI into organizational design and agentic AI.

Using AI to support HR at 407ETR

At Ontario highway operator 407 ETR, the new tech is helping human resources to become more strategic, says Lydia Iacovou, vice-president of HR.

“It really is enhancing our role,” she says. “We're leveraging AI to deal with a lot of the transactional things, to enable us and give us capacity to do more and to be more strategic… to become more effective and to offer more at the table, and more for our employees as well.”

Importantly, Iacovou does not see AI as simply eliminating jobs.

“I think it's going to transform the work we do. It's going to change the work we do, for sure. It's going to elevate and give us capacity to do more… We are looking at AI as an enabler.”

While greater efficiency can eventually influence headcount, she says, “we're not chasing that today — today we’re chasing the benefits of AI and how we can do more.”

One example is the company’s call centre, which recently introduced a new telephony system. Iacovou says customer service representatives are “excited” about the AI features.

“It gives them the ability to do more with our customers, they're empowered to do more because… AI can handle a lot of those tasks,” she explains. “They are feeling like they're able to contribute more and they're more engaged in it. So... that's been a big win for us. It could have gone a completely different direction, but it hasn't.”

Connecting AI to talent development at Skip

At food-delivery platform Skip, the connection between AI and internal talent development is front of mind. The company’s new parent is “very AI-focused and driven,” says Cailey Brown, head of HR for Canada, and for 2026 the focus includes embedding agentic AI into ways of working.

“It’s something we’re looking at at this point. I think different pockets are using it a little bit more — definitely in our product and tech organization, they're probably a little bit further ahead than us.”

Brown notes there can be hesitation around AI among employees in entry-level roles. To respond, the HR team is leaning on internal progression.

“We keep focused on giving people those internal opportunities and developing them into different spaces. I think that eases some concern,” she says.

For Brown, a core goal is ensuring employees understand their contribution.

“All we can do is continue to have people feel like they're adding value, understand the why — that they're working into the business and how they're supporting the broader organization — and I think those skills will transfer elsewhere as well.”

Skills, workforce planning and AI as matching engine

Ackert says skilling and workforce planning are becoming more tightly linked to AI and to evolving job requirements.

“AI is changing and constantly evolving the way that we are doing work. And same with the skills that employees need to execute their work,” she says.

In response, many organizations are adopting a skills-based approach to how they look at people to ensure the skill is being matched to the capabilities within their organization, says Ackert.

“AI is being used to match people to internal projects and identifying skills that could be really powerful to support those projects,” she says, which in turn can bolster internal mobility and the overall employee experience.

Pay transparency and evolving employee proposition

Beyond AI, regulatory changes are also feeding into HR priorities for 2026, particularly around pay transparency. The topic is under active discussion in multiple provinces, with Ontario recently bringing into force new rules around job postings.

From a compensation planning standpoint, Ackert sees “a direct correlation to how organizations are looking at not only how they’re paying their people but what is the cost of paying [their] people.”

She adds that a broader conversation is taking shape around employee experience and value proposition, moving from being a nice-to-have to a must-have “when it comes to employees foundationally aligning themselves with their employee experience and the transparency that the organization is affording them.”

Beyond traditional employee perks, attention is shifting further into pay clarity, career development and more expansive wellbeing supports, says Ackert, including mental health resources in some of the more mature organizations.

Leadership under strain from pace of change

Finally, leadership development is another area moving up the priority list as the pace of change intensifies in 2026.

Ackert links this to both technology and labour market dynamics. Technology change “is at such a rapid pace, and it's no longer coming — it's here,” she says, and that momentum is “being directly translated into the demands of an employee.”

As a result, leaders are being asked to step into roles that differ from those held by previous generations of managers as their responsibilities are “constantly evolving,” says Ackert.

“From an HR perspective, this is creating an increased pressure and now very central role to understand what leadership capabilities exist, what leadership capabilities we were going to need, and what is the delta within the organization so that they can either upskill, rehire, upskill or rehire the employees they currently have.”