HR Trend 2026: The Year of the Human – Why Human Skills and AI Fluency Will Shape the Future of Work
Blog / December 15, 2025 / with Christoph Drebes“People belong at the center of every organization.” With these words, the German HR Summit 2025 came to a close, and few messages resonated more strongly. The conclusion was clear: long-term success isn’t created by tools alone. It’s built through culture, leadership, and genuine involvement.
For many companies, 2025 was the year of AI. Generative AI and large language models made their way into workplaces at a remarkable speed, promising streamlined processes and faster decision-making. But by the end of the year, one insight had become impossible to ignore: AI can do a lot, but not everything, and certainly not always accurately.
This article explores why 2026 will be the year we place the human element back at the center of work, and what this shift means for organizations.
Contents:
Why 2025 reshaped our understanding of AI
In 2025, AI became fully embedded in day-to-day business operations. Recruitment, communication, analytics, and strategy - no area remained untouched. And while early excitement was justified, a dose of reality quickly followed.
AI proved powerful, but far from perfect. Large language models hallucinate, inventing sources, facts, or entire arguments.For example, one highly publicized case in the US involved lawyers submitting nonexistent court cases that ChatGPT had fabricated. Similar issues appeared in healthcare, where AI systems produced “imagined” diagnoses or research results.
Even outside high-stakes scenarios, reliability was an issue. A 2025 Reuters analysis revealed that many AI assistants spread significant misinformation on current topics.
As a result, two camps emerged:Organizations that encouraged employees to use AI actively and restructure processes around it, and organizations that banned AI entirely due to security and data-privacy concerns.
The key lesson from 2025: AI can support, but it cannot understand. It has no intuition, no contextual awareness, and no empathy. And this fundamental truth will shape the workplace in 2026 and beyond.
2026: Putting humans back at the center
In 2026, organizations will look more closely at the people behind the tools. Because everything AI cannot do happens to be what makes organizations thrive: lived experience, creativity, interpersonal intelligence, and the ability to navigate nuance.
Formal and informal knowledge - the invisible asset every company relies on
When it comes to knowledge and knowledge transfer, there is a crucial distinction that will matter even more in 2026. On one hand side, there is a lot of formal knowledge within companies, but the main part is so-called informal knowledge:
Formal knowledgeDocumented, structured, and easily digitized: policies, process manuals, training materials, project plans.
Informal knowledgeUnwritten, experience-based, relational: the knowledge people carry in their heads, share through conversations, build through trust, and pass along organically.
This informal knowledge fuels fast decision-making, collaboration, and innovation. It is created in moments AI cannot capture: a hallway chat, a mentoring session, a spontaneous idea during a cross-functional workshop.
And that is precisely where AI reaches its limits. It cannot access or transmit the informal knowledge that makes an organization truly resilient.
That’s why organizations must create physical and virtual spaces, where this knowledge can flow. In 2026, formats such as reverse mentoring, leadership mentoring, and succession-planning mentoring will play an even greater role in preserving and sharing tacit expertise.
AI remains as a tool, not a replacement
AI is not going anywhere. On the contrary, it will remain a core part of modern work, and that’s a good thing. But in 2026, the focus will shift from whether AI should be used to how we can use it wisely.
AI becomes a tool, not a substitute.Its strength lies in augmenting human work, not replacing it. This means organizations must equip employees with the skills they need to use AI effectively, critically, and responsibly.
The AI capabilities that will matter in 2026
Two skill areas will be essential: AI literacy and AI fluency.
AI Literacy - the foundationAI literacy is the basic ability to understand how AI works, question it critically, and use it responsibly.It includes:
- understanding core concepts (algorithms, data, machine learning, bias)
- evaluating risks and opportunities
- assessing AI outputs critically
- basic knowledge of data privacy and AI ethics
AI Fluency - the applicationAI fluency goes further. It describes the ability to use AI confidently, strategically, and productively in day-to-day work.It includes:
- using AI tools effectively (prompting, workflow automation)
- assessing output quality (plausibility, bias, reliability)
- combining human expertise with machine-generated insights
- deciding when AI adds value and when it doesn’t
Human Skills, the decisive success factor
2026 will not only be defined by AI competencies. Human Skills will become even more strategically important, because they represent what AI cannot replicate:
- Communication and empathy: navigating complexity in hybrid teams
- Creativity and critical thinking: questioning and refining AI results
- Collaboration and social intelligence: breaking down silos and strengthening knowledge transfer
- Reflection and learning agility: making sense of change and adapting quickly
From my experience at Mystery Minds, I know one thing with absolute certainty:People remain the center of every organization. We have seen for years how genuine human connections fuel innovation, trust, and collaboration.The winning formula is not technology alone, but the thoughtful combination of people and technology.
Organizations like Paychex, commercetools, DNV and more than 300 clients worldwide have already proven this in practice. Companies that invest intentionally in Human Skills build a culture ready for the future.Not despite technology, but through it.
2026 is the year of human
The German HR Summit 2025 summarized it perfectly: Future readiness grows through culture, leadership, and involvement, not through tools.
2026 will be the year we take this seriously.
AI will remain - as a tool. People will remain - as the heart.
Organizations that bring both together will build workplaces that are intelligent and unmistakably human.
And as transformation programs accelerate, whether through AI adoption or shifts in operating models, one truth becomes crystal clear: Any company investing in technology must invest in culture at the same time.
HR leaders should develop culture roadmaps alongside their tech roadmaps.
Only then can organizations evolve not only technologically, but humanly, and truly position themselves for long-term success.
About the author:
Christoph Drebes
Christoph is an entrepreneur from Munich and co-founded Mystery Minds in 2016. Mystery Minds' mission is to make the world of work more human by creating meaningful, personal connections between colleagues. The remote-only team already works with over 250 international companies, helping them to strengthen internal networks and overcome silo mentalities.
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