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To lead effectively in the AI era, HR leaders must strike a deliberate balance, writes Zach Friedman.
As AI reshapes how organisations operate, HR leaders find themselves navigating one of the most profound workforce transformations in decades. Gartner predicts 50 per cent of current HR activities will be AI-automated or performed by AI agents by 2030, fundamentally transforming HR’s work, roles, and workflows.
With so much hype surrounding what AI can deliver, HR leaders are looking to incorporate new and emerging technology skills into HR roles to maintain a competitive advantage and unlock AI’s transformative potential.
Recent Gartner research found that 92 per cent of HR leaders have already taken action to implement AI in HR over the last six months. This includes HR teams piloting tools, creating AI roadmaps, and launching staff learning programs at breakneck speed.
While many HR leaders are actively adding technical fluency to their teams, many overlook the equally important responsibility of safeguarding the core human-centric capabilities that are foundational to HR’s success, such as critical thinking, creativity, and change leadership.
Focusing solely on developing new technology skills without also preserving essential human skills – prioritising code over culture – risks undermining costly investments and misses the opportunity to position HR as the organisation’s leader in human-machine collaboration.
Instead, HR leaders must strike a balance between adding new skills, adapting evolving skills that are growing in importance, and preserving core skills from atrophy. The future of HR will be defined by those that can blend human expertise with machine intelligence.
Essential skills for an AI-infused HR function
As AI becomes embedded in HR, new skills are rising in relevance, including AI literacy, responsible AI governance, intelligent workflow design, and the ability to mediate between human judgement and algorithmic recommendations.
A recent Gartner survey found 79 per cent of HR leaders believe that upskilling HR staff on AI literacy is necessary to enhance HR’s productivity using AI.
These new skills are becoming essential for HR teams tasked with ensuring that AI systems are reliable, ethical, and aligned with organisational culture.
What makes these skills challenging is their pace of change. Since AI technologies evolve quickly, the competencies required to manage and leverage them evolve quickly too. They must be approached with intentionality and customised based on industry demands, organisational maturity, and strategic goals, rather than defaulting to a one-size-fits-all model.
Understand how critical skills are changing today
Alongside new competencies are a set of established skills that have grown significantly more important in an AI-infused HR operating model. These skills – which include data engineering, enterprise project management, strategic consulting, and change leadership – must be elevated in development priorities and reinforced in role expectations.
It’s important to redefine what these skills now mean, given the way AI is changing the nature of work. What they looked like in the past is fundamentally different in the AI era.
These capabilities matter because AI doesn’t eliminate HR’s strategic influence – it amplifies it. HR now has access to more data, insights, and automation than ever before. But turning those insights into business outcomes requires human judgement, business acumen, and the ability to lead transformation across functions. HR leaders must ensure their function has the right skills to achieve changing measures of success.
Know what you can’t afford to lose
Automation doesn’t diminish human skills in value – they become non-negotiable. The core human skills HR can’t afford to lose include critical thinking, creativity, data judgement, emotional intelligence, business acumen, and relationship management.
These capabilities are the glue that binds technology to meaningful outcomes. Without them, even the most advanced AI systems will fail to generate trust, adoption, or long-term value.
The risk is subtle but real – if HR leaders focus disproportionately on technical upskilling, these fundamental skills may erode. Once weakened, they are far harder to rebuild.
Achieving a balancing act
To lead effectively in the AI era, HR leaders must strike a deliberate balance. This means adding the right new AI-aligned skills, as not every team member needs deep technical expertise, so build enough fluency to deploy AI responsibly and strategically.
It also involves elevating the skills growing in importance, especially those related to data interpretation, enterprise leadership, and strategic consulting. Then, protecting the human skills that define HR’s value because they are what allow technology to be applied with insight, empathy, and purpose.
This balancing act requires ongoing assessment and adaptability. AI will continue reshaping HR’s work, and HR leaders must revisit skill priorities often to stay ahead of the curve.
Zach Friedman is a senior principal analyst in the Gartner HR practice.
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