Artificial intelligence programs are spreading across Asia-Pacific enterprises at a pace that outstrips the region’s ability to staff and sustain them, according to research published by professional services firm Aon plc on June 3, 2026.
Aon’s Human Capital Trends Study drew on responses from 2,361 business, HR, and people leaders worldwide, with 504 participants from across Asia-Pacific, covering Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Three in four APAC organizations – 74% – have either rolled out or are currently testing AI programs, a share that edges past the global figure of 73%. The gap emerges, however, when organizations attempt to scale those programs. Only 21% of APAC respondents said they are confident in their ability to hire and keep enough AI-skilled workers, a figure that falls below the global average of 24%. That shortfall represents a structural barrier to realizing the returns that organizations are pursuing through AI investment.
Tim Dwyer, head of Human Capital in APAC for Aon, pointed to a disconnect between what organizations know and what they do with that knowledge. “The study highlights a critical gap between access to workforce data and the ability to act on it meaningfully. Insufficient investment in skills and workforce planning is constraining the value organisations can realise from AI. Addressing this gap will require stronger workforce planning, more personalised employee experiences, and closer alignment between talent strategies and long-term business priorities – unlocking productivity gains and sustaining long-growth across the region,” Dwyer said.
Among APAC respondents, 84% said they expect AI to take over specific tasks rather than displace workers outright, while 87% anticipate the technology will generate roles that call for skills not currently in demand. A smaller share – 25% – acknowledged that some job losses are likely as AI use matures. Organizations flagged adaptability and change management as the workforce competencies most needed over the next three years.
APAC employers posted stronger HR data maturity scores than their global counterparts – 42% reported high maturity levels, against 38% globally. Only 9% of organizations reported that their workforce had not recently participated in any AI-related training or upskilling initiative. That capacity for data-driven decision-making has not, however, carried over into how employees experience their benefits. Only 22% of workers in the region can adjust or personalize their benefits packages, a rate that trails the global average of 33% by a wide margin. That gap is notable given that 76% of APAC employees said personalized benefits matter to them. In response, organizations said they are concentrating efforts on three areas: moving HR functions further along the digital path, reinforcing leadership pipelines and succession frameworks, and refining how workforce planning aligns with organizational structure.
Most organizations – 85% – said their wellbeing programs are meeting workforce needs. Visible commitment from leadership is less common, with only 26% of respondents reporting that senior leaders are actively and publicly engaged with those programs. The employee value proposition (EVP) tells a similar story. Just 22% of organizations said their EVP is articulated clearly enough for employees to understand it. When asked what gets in the way of meaningful engagement with staff, respondents most frequently cited information overload.
On pay practices, the data suggests room for development. Only 18% of organizations in the region said their pay transparency practices have reached a level they consider mature, and more than a quarter – 26% – had not measured their compensation against market benchmarks within the past year. There is a brighter picture on gender equity in retirement savings, where 31% of APAC organizations are running initiatives to close the gap between men and women – a rate that exceeds the global average. Puneet Swani, head of Talent Solutions in APAC for Aon, said the path forward requires organizations to move from gathering insights to putting them to work. “Enhancing pay transparency, expanding benefits personalisation, and aligning workforce strategy with business priorities will help build greater workforce resilience,” Swani said.
The Aon findings sit alongside wider questions about AI preparedness within the insurance industry specifically. A GlobalData poll of 113 respondents, conducted across the first and second quarters of 2026, found that close to a quarter believed AI has not yet reached the level of maturity needed for broad deployment in insurance. A shortage of in-house expertise ranked as the second most common concern.
Ben Carey-Evans, senior insurance analyst at GlobalData, noted that most insurance AI applications to date have been confined to customer-facing functions. “This might be because use cases to date are largely around customer service and chatbots, rather than full-scale implementation. Regulation has not fully caught up yet, and there is concern around who is liable for mistakes made by AI,” Carey-Evans said.
Job posting data from GlobalData’s Job Analytics unit recorded 63,293 active insurance roles tied to AI expertise in 2025 – a 50.9% rise from the prior year and the highest annual count on record – indicating that hiring is one avenue insurers are using to close the knowledge gap. Carey-Evans suggested that limiting AI rollouts to specific functions initially may help organizations manage the complexity involved. “Targeting certain areas at a time, such as customer service, customer acquisition, or claims could help make the scale manageable,” Carey-Evans said.
