Even though the year began with some high-profile tech layoffs, while many experts predicted that AI might be a drag on employment and hiring, it turns out a larger percentage of IT departments have been adding staff since any point before the 2008 Great Recession. In a bit of a twist, new findings from Avasant suggest AI might have companies actually building talent in order to transform their organizations into being AI-ready. According to the research firm’s most recent “IT Spending and Staffing Benchmark” study, 64 percent of companies are increasing IT head count, and only 11 percent are decreasing the size of their internal IT staff. This is both the largest number increasing head count and the smallest number decreasing it since at least 2008. As further comparison, only 48 percent of companies planned to grow their IT staff last year. “It is highly likely that a significant portion of this hiring is driven by AI and machine learning,” said Avasant researchers. As organizations move from experimentation to implementation, they are expanding the teams required to support data-intensive and AI-enabled initiatives, they continued. Avasant noted recent growth in roles such as financial analysts, business analysts and database professionals, all likely part of an effort to scale AI and the use of large datasets. This year, the firm also added AI/ML architects and engineers as a distinct staffing category in its survey, and already these roles account for approximately 2 percent of IT head count on average, with variances by size and sector. “In addition to staffing growth, we are also seeing significant investment in technology designed to help companies get AI-ready,” said David Wagner, senior research director at Avasant. “This includes data analytics and business intelligence, but also, more importantly, we are seeing a major increase in spending in recent years to upgrade legacy systems.” Incidentally, CIOs are feeling particularly bullish. Exactly two-thirds report that, despite modest budget increases, they have an adequate budget to support the demands of their enterprise. This is the highest level of budget confidence Avasant has recorded in the past decade, surpassing last year’s previous high of 59 percent. “CIOs are not only investing in growth but also feel increasingly equipped to support their organizations’ strategic priorities,” said the research firm. Every customer interaction teaches a company something, but the lesson rarely travels beyond the person or AI agent that handled it, said executives at Zenarate. That runs the risk of the same problems coming back again and again. In turn, Zenarate has positioned itself as a frontline performance platform for humans and AI. It helps enterprises take what every interaction teaches, share it across their people and AI agents, and make sure it improves the next customer experience. “We see this pattern all the time,” said Rob Wright, chief product officer at Zenarate. “A customer talks to an AI agent or a person, and the conversation ends without escalation. But the problem isn’t fixed, so they call back a couple of days later.” From the company’s side, that first call often gets marked a success because the rubric used to evaluate it shows the frontline team member followed the process. But the customer had to do the work twice, Wright continued. The company had what it needed to catch that but never surfaced it or acted on it. “We can now follow that customer’s journey across every contact and change the definition of success: ‘did the problem get solved?’” he continued. “AI agent tuning, associate training and coaching, and process fixes are now all automatically tied to that standard.” The goal is to make people and AI agents better at the same time. People get better through simulation practice and coaching. AI agents get better through a knowledge fix, a workflow change or a smarter escalation rule. Zenarate connects the two through shared evidence, so each side makes the other better. Escalations and AI interactions show where associates need more preparation, and what top-performing associates do shapes how AI agents are built. “Information is not improvement until something changes,” said Brian Tuite, CEO of Zenarate. “Every company’s frontline is becoming people and AI working together. The companies that pull ahead will learn the fastest from every customer interaction, so the next customer gets a straight answer and moves on with their day. That’s what we’ve built Zenarate to do.” IT Hiring Rates Defy AI Doomsayers Zenarate Closes the CX Loop AI & AUTOMATION Organizations Changing IT Head Count Increasing 64% No change 25% Decreasing 11% Source: Avasant Research, 2026 8 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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