The report also indicated that among the 20 countries surveyed, Ireland was shown to be most in anticipation of a ‘heightened pace of change’.
Multinational technology company Accenture has released new research exploring the attitudes of business leaders and employees, across a range of countries. The Pulse of Change report collected data from 3,650 leaders and 3,350 employees across 20 industries and countries.
What was discovered is that, in Ireland, 94pc of leaders who contributed their data, expect to increase AI investment in 2026. An additional 90pc of Irish organisations believe that their hiring plans will grow throughout the year, compared to just 71pc of businesses across wider Europe. 95pc of Irish leaders were found to be in anticipation of a heightened pace of change in 2026, the highest among all surveyed regions.
The jury is still out however, in relation to how employees and business leaders view workplace GenAI. While 91pc of leaders in Ireland said that their experience with the tech over the course of the past year has changed the way they view technology for the better, this was said for only 51pc of participating Irish employees.
The report said, “Confidence remains low among employees more broadly. Just over one-in-five (23pc) say they can use AI tools confidently and explain them to others, compared with 33pc in the UK and 25pc across Europe.
“Only 27pc feel very prepared to respond to technological disruption in 2026, including emerging technologies and AI, compared with 34pc in Europe. This stands in contrast to Irish leaders, 57pc of whom say they are well prepared to respond.”
Commenting on the findings of the report, Hilary O’Meara, the country managing director for Accenture in Ireland said, “Irish business leaders are demonstrating remarkable ambition when it comes to AI investment and reinvention. However, this research shows that for organisations to fully unlock the value of AI, they need to bring their people with them.
“Employees are asking for clearer communication and clarity in how AI will change their roles and skills. The companies that succeed in 2026 won’t just scale AI technologies, they’ll scale trust, transparency and capability, resulting in greater employee confidence. That is how Ireland will sustain its competitive edge and ensure AI becomes a driver of shared growth for both leaders and employees.”
Future skills
In line with the need for greater investment into workplace AI, as indicated by the report, Accenture’s data shows that more than half (56pc) of leaders are planning to upskill and reskill the workforce for “AI-enhanced work” in 2026. However, this too was an area in which there was an obvious disparity in opinions between business leaders and employees.
100pc of Irish leaders who shared their information said that their organisation’s workforce has the appropriate training to work with AI, yet only 55pc of contributing employees agreed. Only 3pc of Irish employees actually reported significant change in their role due to AI, compared to 7pc in wider Europe.
“Communication appears to be a major contributing factor,” stated the report, which also said, “only 17pc of Irish employees strongly agree that leadership has very clearly communicated how AI agents and agentic AI will impact the workforce, including changes to roles and required skills.”
Agentic AI is, for many businesses, becoming the new frontier in which to explore and innovate, with large and small organisations alike looking to carve out their own space in the sector. It was recently announced that Yann LeCun, the former AI chief of Meta, has raised $1.03bn in seed funding for his start-up Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI).
His platform aims to develop ‘world models’ that learn abstract representations of real-world sensor data and would allow agentic systems to predict the consequences of their actions and plan action sequences that accomplish tasks “subject to safety guardrails”.
Also announced this week, technology giant Microsoft revealed plans to launch Copilot Cowork, which is a tool based on Anthropic’s popular Claude Cowork. Reportedly, it is part of Microsoft’s long-term plan to take advantage of the growing demand for autonomous agents.
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