What do organizations need most in a disrupted, boundaryless age? More imagination.

Moreover, new technologies are becoming better at replicating the functional and technical aspects of work. And yet much of the differentiation going forward will likely come from what humans do or evolve to do, not technology. Today’s AI is capable of creation, using the methods and tools of music or visual art, and this ability may expand as technology advances.³ However, AI cannot replicate the curiosity and empathy that fuel imagination and lead to creative invention. This involves the drive to explore, to craft narratives, and to team—work that requires thinking like a researcher and asking the right questions as much as delivering on preprogrammed objectives.

To harness human capabilities in service of imagination, both organizations and workers have important roles to play. Organizations will need to scale and operationalize the cultivation of human capabilities such as curiosity and empathy through intentional development and establishing of cultural norms, and they should give workers and teams the autonomy to use these capabilities to shape the kinds of work they do. At the same time, workers will need to grow, practice, and deploy these human capabilities to envision how their roles will change as AI and other disruptive technologies take on more prominent roles in their working lives.

Organizations can help cultivate these capabilities by providing workers with the tools and safe spaces to experiment, explore, and envision possible futures. By empowering workers to ask questions about their work, leaders can lean into a more open evolution and disruption of work that values human sustainability and organization-wide cocreation.

Generative AI shines a spotlight on an imagination deficit

In 2021, a Deloitte survey of global workers gave some insight into how many workers were already beginning to explore the evolution of their work—in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time—and how they contributed to it.⁵ When asked to imagine how technology could improve their roles, workers responded with ideas such as:

• What if AI attended meetings and could create short, precise summaries of what happened in each one?
• What if technology could organize my project finances and track my projects’ spend without me having to create onerous large spreadsheets?
• What if the calendars I manage could automatically manage scheduling between parties and discern less important meetings from higher priority ones?
• What if technology supported the ability to learn new skills and new abilities without taking time away from and affecting your day job?

In just a few short years, advances in AI, especially generative AI, have already turned most of these ideas into reality. ChatGPT, the early and most well-known example of generative AI, reached one million users just five days after its launch in 2022—a number that took TikTok nine months to achieve.⁶ AI is already being used to transform all manner of work across almost every sector, including many domains originally thought to be out of the realm of possibility for computing.⁷ According to a recent research report, these transformations could lead to a dramatic increase in macroeconomic output akin to the original inventions of the electric motor and the personal computer.⁸

But the potential disruption of generative AI may be outpacing the capacity of many organizations and workers to imagine new ways of working that tap into the strengths of both humans and technology. According to our 2024 Global Human Capital Trends research, 73% of respondents say it is important to ensure that the human capabilities in the organization keep pace with technological innovation, but just 9% say they are making progress toward achieving that balance. Consequently, many organizations may find themselves with an imagination deficit.

In the accelerating march of disruptive technologies, generative AI is leading the charge. While emerging technologies and other disruptions previously led to concerns for organizations and workers related to skills development, employability, and fear of the unknown, generative AI has put a renewed fervor and sense of urgency to these same questions. Already, 28% of workers say they use generative AI occasionally for their work, and 8% say it’s expected or encouraged as part of their work. In the coming years, four out of five US workers could see at least 10% of their tasks automated by generative AI, and about one in five workers could see up to 50% of their tasks automated by generative AI.⁹ Another recent global report estimates that generative AI could soon do up to a quarter of the work currently done by humans.¹⁰

The coding capabilities of generative AI, for example, offer insight into how this technology might impact jobs, particularly high-demand jobs with a STEM focus. Recent research shows that generative AI tools will be able speed up a developer’s code generation.¹¹ For financial services company Westpac, the shift is already happening. The company saw a 46% gain in productivity, with no reduction in quality, in coders aided by generative AI compared to coders who performed the same tasks on their own.¹² These gains, which were reported by both junior and senior engineers, may reduce the amount of time coders have to spend on more routine tasks, creating space for more complex work that not only requires human capabilities to execute but can also lead to increased meaning and purpose.

Many of the tasks that will be automated are in fields of knowledge work, such as writing, translating, and coding.¹³ But nearly all jobs will have some level of exposure, and the AI transformation will encompass nearly all forms of work. In agriculture, for example, AI-powered technology is already being used to eliminate weeds, monitor plant health, and identify rocks in fields.¹⁴ In retail, AI is augmenting workers’ ability to manage inventories in real time and provide customers with highly personalized experiences.¹⁵

While workers share concerns about the threat of technology taking over their jobs or worry about the new skills that will be needed to keep up with technology changes,¹⁶ they also see an upside: 70% of workers would be willing to delegate as much work as possible to AI to free up time for other tasks and enhance their creativity.¹⁷

The more AI-enabled work becomes, the more important human imagination becomes

To harness the extraordinary potential of this moment, organizations and workers alike should counter their fear with curiosity and imagination. Put simply, work is changing. What if it could be better? The role of imagination is particularly important in the current moment, given the nontraditional nature of generative AI as a technology. In contrast to commonly used technologies such as internet browsers or word processing applications, which either work or fail, the effectiveness of generative AI can’t be measured in black and white terms. Generative AI can produce results with varying levels of accuracy and precision. It may make mistakes, and humans will have to devise methods to assess its reliability.¹⁸

Moreover, unlike many past technologies, generative AI tools aren’t necessarily anchored to any one task or domain. Rather, they can excel at generating knowledge and drawing connections from massive sets of data and ideas. Consequently, they have the potential to help workers in numerous ways—many of which have yet to be imagined. At the same time, it’s important to note that generative AI also has the potential to produce inaccurate information and reinforce existing biases from the data it’s trained on or the people who design it.¹⁹ Addressing these errors and biases will require the curiosity and empathy of the workers who use it.

As technology advances and humans discover more ways to use generative AI, it has the potential to become a true creative partner for workers, aiding in tasks such as production design, naming, testing, and marketing. Workers could collaborate with generative AI to compose complex texts, develop software, and interact with customers in more effective ways. Organizations are already starting to imagine new uses that expand on previously imagined ideas of what was possible. For example, a recent collaboration between Zapata Computing, BMW, and MIT’s Center for Quantum Engineering is using generative AI inspired by quantum technologies to improve the efficiency of automotive production lines.²⁰

The success of these collaborations will likely depend on the degree to which organizations and workers can focus on developing curiosity, resilience, divergent thinking, emotional intelligence, and other human capabilities.

There is increasing recognition at a global level of the importance of these human capabilities. According to research by the World Economic Forum, the top core skills for workers in 2023 include things such as curiosity, creative thinking, empathy, and resilience.²¹ In fact, “technological literacy” is the only technology skill listed in the top ten. There is, however, a broad gap for all the skills related to human capabilities, with respondents estimating that less than 10% of their current workforce possesses them.

How the process of developing these human capabilities plays out will often differ from culture to culture and across geographies and industries. For example, in Japan, curiosity is sometimes considered a hindrance to flawless execution based on proven methods. There, innovation often results from finding solutions to acknowledged problems, rather than curiosity about new ideas.²² To encourage more curiosity, one Japanese pharmaceutical company, Shionogi & Co., experimented with an optional four day workweek to allow workers to use the fifth day as an opportunity to gain experiences not available to them within the confines of their job, with the hope that they would infuse their digital upskilling and creativity into the business.²³

Scaling human capabilities creates value for organizations and workers

Organizations that focus solely on traditional strategies for differentiation, such as minimizing costs or developing new products and services, may see short-term gains fizzle out as the pace of technological change continues to accelerate. What may be needed now is a new model, one in which people and technology come together to cocreate new knowledge, address previously hidden problems, and discover new opportunities to create value. This way of operating requires the deliberate scaling and cultivation of human capabilities. Organizations should also work with technology to bring these qualities to the fore—a point most executives agree with. In our survey, 71% of executives said their organization’s plans for generative AI include using it to advance the human capabilities of their workers.

Consider Swedish retailer, IKEA. The global furniture company is using AI technologies to transform its global call center operations, intending to both increase efficiencies and turn each agent into a designer—shifting the focus of their roles from procedure and process to creativity and human connection. IKEA implemented an AI bot named Billie to handle most routine customer asks. They then invested in a comprehensive upskilling initiative for their 8,500 call center workers to strengthen design skills and human capabilities.²⁴

As people bring their unique skills and capabilities to the table to collaborate within and across organizations, learning accelerates, value is scaled, and the imagination deficit narrows or even disappears. By embracing this model, organizations have an opportunity for true differentiation.

Investing in the development of human capabilities doesn’t just build organizational resilience: It improves worker resilience, well-being, and mental health—all important components of human sustainability. As we wrote about in our 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report, conventional reskilling initiatives are insufficient on their own.²⁵ The pace of change is too fast, and work is becoming too dynamic: Facts that recent research shows are contributing to a broad mental health crisis in today’s workplace.²⁶ Instead, we should equip workforces with the tools and strategies to practice adapting to a range of possible futures. Doing so can enhance worker well-being and leverage the dynamic potential of people to reinvent themselves as the best way to prepare for uncertainty. This is also likely to set apart the organizations who can learn from unexpected challenges without crumbling under pressure and are therefore better positioned for long-term success.²⁷

Harnessing imagination to create positive change

To help ensure an adequate supply of imagination, organizations should shift from an approach that prioritizes short-term fixes to a long-term approach that prioritizes adaptability, resilience, and imagination. For many organizations, such a shift will require a redefinition of success, one that reflects a reimagined world of work in which humans and technology produce value together. There are four key steps organizations can take to begin investing in human capabilities in their organizations:

• Operationalize human capabilities as part of overall workforce strategy. Start by assessing the current state of your workforce’s collective human capabilities, in particular, empathy and curiosity. Most organizations have more experience measuring functional and technical skills than broader capabilities. According to Deloitte’s Skills Based Organization global survey, 68% of business and HR leaders say they are confident they have verified and valid information on their workers’ hard skills, but only 48% are confident they have verified and valid information on their workers’ human capabilities.²⁸ While measuring human capabilities isn’t as straightforward as measuring hard skills, there are nevertheless a variety of ways to do so. Organizations can collect peer or manager feedback, assessments, or endorsements of capabilities. They can use digital assessment tools including psychometric assessments, simulations, and challenges. Or, if workers consent, they can use AI tools that infer human capabilities by analyzing workers’ daily behaviors and performance in the flow of work, including AI analysis of audio or video calls.²⁹
  
  Once an organization understands the relative strength of human capabilities in its workforce and identifies any capability gaps, it can start to close those gaps by operationalizing the development of human capabilities. One way to do this is to begin hiring for them. Many organizations are already doing so. For example, design and consulting company IDEO prioritizes hiring “T-shaped” employees: people with human capabilities such as creativity (the vertical stroke of the T) and a willingness to collaborate across disciplines (the horizontal stroke of the T). The organization understands that T-shaped candidates are more likely to ask questions about the organization that aren’t directly related to the roles they’re applying for, and they’re more likely to talk about how past successes have involved collaboration, rather than focusing exclusively on themselves.³⁰ 
  
  In conjunction with deploying talent acquisition initiatives, future-thinking organizations will develop, support, and reward the effective use of human capabilities across their workforce. For example, many organizations with a large frontline worker population engage in empathy-related training and development.³¹ Such development activities often involve deliberately being placed in unfamiliar experiences or having the chance to observe and then practice empathetic responses. Best Western hotels, for example, used VR to help workers better empathize with tired and frustrated travelers.³²
• Practice imagination in service of human sustainability. Today’s workers have increased agency and many are seeking greater meaning in their work.³³ While extrinsic rewards can be important, research has found that one of the best rewards for exercising creativity is simply the chance to use it in service of outcomes that are meaningful to the individual.³⁴ Encouraging workers to use their human capabilities in service of outcomes that matter to them and to the organization has the potential to be a virtuous, reinforcing cycle. These capabilities may be innate, but when they aren’t exercised on a regular basis, they can atrophy. That’s why it’s so important for leaders to model and encourage their use. When given a safe space and the time to pursue projects of interest—even if that work lies outside their defined responsibilities—workers have a chance to hone and strengthen their human capabilities while generating greater value for the organization and themselves. Organizations can harness the intrinsic passion that, for most people, is the strongest motivating force.³⁵
• Highlight for workers, teams, and managers the need to prioritize human capabilities. Workers should not be expected to transform their mindsets overnight from “What needs to get done?” to “What possibilities can I help unlock?” Leaders have a responsibility to communicate the importance of curiosity and empathy and model behavior that demonstrates their effective use. One of the most effective ways for leaders and managers to model curiosity is to engage in a consistent practice of asking questions and sincerely listening to what workers have to say. Leaders often believe they’re expected to provide all the answers themselves, particularly in times of crisis. In reality, asking workers how they can be most helpful often leads to better ways of moving forward while also strengthening connections across the organization. Managers and team leaders can also create space for their workers to use their human capabilities to rethink their roles (figure 3).

For some leaders, embracing a model that encourages worker autonomy and feedback may be difficult. Managers and executives are often encouraged to deliver on specific objectives or solve for specific problems and may fail to see the upside of thinking outside the box. One survey of 520 chief learning officers and chief talent development officers found that they often fail to encourage curiosity because they believe the organization would be harder to manage if people were allowed to explore their own interests.³⁶ Instilling habits and norms that foster creativity requires senior leaders to develop and promote governance frameworks that consider creativity as a key factor when deciding what to invest in.

Organizations may need to overcome biases against curiosity and creativity and related blind spots as to their rising importance for workers. As illustrated in figure 4, executives see human capabilities as very important for themselves (8 out of 10) but only moderately important for their workers (6 out of 10).

One of the reasons for this difference might be the mixed, historical perceptions of creativity in organizations. It has often been seen as competing with efficiency, even though in the long term, it has the potential to generate tremendous value.³⁷ Recent research has found that many people celebrate creativity outwardly while subconsciously viewing it as a disruptive force that introduces unwanted uncertainty.³⁸ Curiosity, too, has historically been seen as both a positive quality and a potentially disruptive one.³⁹ This may partly explain why, in a recent survey spanning 16 industries, 65% of workers said curiosity was of great importance to exploring new ideas and solving work problems, while almost as many—60%—said they encountered difficulties in fulfilling their curiosity on the job because of daily routines and rigid organizational structures.⁴⁰

When people at all levels of an organization are not only communicating the importance of qualities like curiosity and imagination but modeling them in their day-to-day actions, a culture of trust can be created in which workers begin to feel more comfortable with uncertainty and can lean into an imaginative transformation of their roles. What’s more, investing in worker reinvention can build resilience among current workers and make the organization more attractive to new workers, positioning it well for talent attraction and retention.

Interestingly, collaboration with machines is ranked highest for workers and lowest for executives, suggesting that leaders may be underestimating the impact of AI on their roles (figure 4).

• Provide opportunities and venues for workers to explore, experiment, disrupt, and cocreate. It’s not enough to simply encourage innovation: Organizations should also provide digital playgrounds for workers to explore, experiment, disrupt, and cocreate, working with both their human colleagues and with the latest technological tools. When given the safe space and encouragement to play and search for new possibilities, workers can more easily tap into their natural curiosity and let go of the fear that could be holding them back from taking risks.
  
  Create moments, both ad hoc and built into daily work, to exercise the imagination. Hackathons offer one model for how to create such experimental moments. In hackathons, creative autonomy is valued above all else. Instead of managing the innovation process as it happens, managers set the stage by providing access to tools and asking a set of questions to inspire creativity.

Looking toward an imagination-rich future

The disruption posed by technological innovation and an increasingly interconnected world is changing the way organizations and workers analyze, collaborate, and create. New, yet-to-be-imagined technologies are likely to continue to do so in the future. But while some of the tools of creativity can be automated, the desire to seek answers to new questions and explore the unknown are not capable of automation. These capabilities are uniquely human.

It’s up to organizations to prioritize human capabilities in a technology-dependent world. This means hiring for faculties such as curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking; developing them throughout the workforce; providing safe spaces where workers can come together to experiment and practice; and rewarding workers who harness their autonomy to reimagine what’s possible for themselves, the organization, and its stakeholders.

This reimagination is no longer the exclusive remit of organizational leaders. Instead, it’s a team sport that involves everyone in the organization and beyond, welcoming new technologies into teams to produce transformative outcomes. When imagination becomes an expectation from top to bottom, workers can imagine new opportunities and organizations can be better positioned for perpetual reinvention and innovation.