Why 2026 Will Define Your Workforce Strategy for the Next Decade

Russ Fradin, CEO and Co-Founder, Larridin

January 7, 2026

Every major technology transformation creates winners and losers. The difference between the two is rarely the technology itself, it’s how organizations structure themselves to absorb it. As we move forward in 2026, HR leaders face an unprecedented challenge: managing a workforce that’s fracturing into three distinct segments based on AI capability, creating “the AI divide.” The organizations that bridge this gap in the next 18 months will outpace their competitors at a velocity that makes catching up mathematically impossible. 

What’s At Stake? 

According to Gartner, AI spending will reach $1.5 trillion in 2025, accelerating to $2 trillion in 2026. As Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently noted, “We’re probably looking at three to twelve trillion dollars of digital labor getting deployed. That digital labor is going to be everything from AI agents to robots.” This isn’t future speculation; this is happening now. And within your organization, a divide is already forming between employees who are leveraging this digital labor effectively and those who are watching from the sidelines. 

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