Stop funding AI your leaders can't govern. Start building leadership that understands what it approves.

What did the Adecco study find?

On 21 May 2026 the Adecco Group published The human premium: Leadership beyond the algorithm, a survey of 2,000 C-suite executives across 13 countries whose organisations employ more than 8.6 million workers. Fieldwork ran from December 2025 to January 2026.

Four numbers frame the gap:

• 45% of leaders expect AI agents to be integrated into workflows within the next 12 months.
• Only 31% say their leadership team has sufficient AI skills and knowledge to understand the risks and opportunities.
• Only 22% are highly confident their organisation is developing the digital and future-ready capabilities needed to keep pace with change.
• Only 36% say their talent strategy clearly demonstrates that AI will create opportunities for workers, and only 39% are involving employees directly in job redesign.

Sources: Adecco Group press release, Global study finds widening gap between AI ambition and workforce readiness (21 May 2026)

Does this data apply to the UAE?

Read the sample before you quote it. The 13 countries are the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and nine European markets (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK). There are no UAE or GCC respondents, so these are not UAE figures.

What the report does offer Gulf leaders is a pattern worth testing in your own leadership team: ambition for AI agents running well ahead of the skills to govern them. The only way to know whether it holds in your company is to ask your own executives.

Sources: Adecco Group, The human premium: Leadership beyond the algorithm (full report, 2026)

Are employees more ready than their leaders think?

The report sets its leader survey against an earlier Adecco survey of 9,928 non-line managers (Humanity at work, October 2025). 70% of those workers said they would feel comfortable collaborating with an AI agent, while only 39% of leaders believe employees would be comfortable. On timing it flips: 45% of leaders expect AI agents in workflows within 12 months, against 30% of the workers.

Adecco's own reading is that workforce readiness may be stronger than leaders assume, while communication and alignment lag behind adoption. In practice: your people may be more ready than you think, and less informed about what is coming than you assume. Both gaps are closed by leaders, not by tools.

Sources: Adecco Group press release (21 May 2026) · Adecco Group, The human premium (full report, non-line manager comparison)

Which AI decisions can only leaders make?

Most companies close the AI gap from the bottom up: buy tools, train the doers, hope the leaders follow. Three decisions cannot be delegated that way:

• What to approve. A leadership team that cannot tell an agentic workflow from a chatbot will keep signing off pilots that duplicate each other, or reject the one that matters.
• What to delegate. An executive who cannot judge an AI output either checks every output (and loses the productivity gain) or rubber-stamps outputs nobody understands (and takes on the risk).
• What to stop. Knowing when an AI initiative is wrong is the same investment judgment leaders already use, applied to a technology most were never trained to evaluate.

Why does verification belong at the top table?

Because AI incidents already reach it. In IBM's October 2026 survey of 3,221 executives at organisations with 1,000+ employees in eight European and Middle Eastern markets, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, eight in ten said an AI-related incident (an agent failure, data exposure, AI-driven decision error or AI security breach) reached their board or C-suite in the past year. Only 40% of those organisations cite a change to AI governance policy in response.

That figure covers all eight markets together, not the UAE alone. But it shows why leaders need the habit of checking AI output before it enters a decision: a draft that invents a regulation, a forecast that ignores seasonality, a summary that flatters the presenter.

Sources: IBM Newsroom, Eight in ten EMEA enterprises escalate AI incidents to board or C-suite (14 October 2026)

What does AI-skilled leadership look like?

A CEO, CHRO or board member does not need to become a power user. Three competencies matter more:

• Evaluate: read an AI proposal and ask what it automates, what happens when it is wrong, and who is accountable.
• Verify: check AI output before it enters your decision process, and expect your team to do the same.
• Communicate: say plainly what AI will and will not change in roles and careers, before rumours do it for you. Adecco's report recommends a clear AI roadmap and engaging workers early on how roles and skills will evolve.

What should a leadership team do this week?

Adecco Group CEO Denis Machuel put it this way: "AI may move at software speed, but organizational trust moves at human speed." Three moves that work at human speed:

• Run a short leadership self-audit, anonymously: Can we explain what our AI investments do? Can we judge whether an AI output is correct? Do we know who is accountable when an AI system fails? Could we explain to employees how AI helps them?
• Give one leadership agenda slot to capability, not budget. Ask every AI proposal to state its failure mode and its accountable owner.
• Get an outside read on where your leadership team stands before the next budget cycle, so the gap list is written before the spend is approved.

Sources: Adecco Group press release (CEO quote and recommendations)

Where to start

That leadership layer is the gap Mounaim Lamouni works on. With 15+ years inside organisations before AI, he starts with how your leaders approve, delegate and verify, not with tool demos. A free 15-minute call maps where your leadership team stands; executive coaching and corporate training then build the capability.