How Industrial Leaders Are Underestimating AI Workforce Disruption

Industrial is the sector where physical AI is arriving first, and it is also the sector where workforce leadership is most absent from the AI agenda. 

The International Federation of Robotics reported 542,000 industrial robots installed globally in 2024, bringing the worldwide operational stock to 4.66 million units. That figure tracks traditional industrial robots, the category that has driven factory automation for decades. Humanoid robots, where AI is the defining technology, are tracked separately and growing far faster. Goldman Sachs projects the humanoid market will reach $38 billion by 2035, a sixfold upward revision the bank attributes largely to faster than expected AI progress. And production units are arriving on factory floors now. Boston Dynamics unveiled the production version of its electric Atlas at CES 2026, with plans to train it on AI foundation models. Figure AI has scaled production of its Figure 03 humanoids to one per hour at its BotQ facility, generating training data for Helix, its proprietary humanoid AI model. The installations arriving on factory floors over the next five years will change which jobs exist, which skills matter, and what the workers around the machines do all day.

And yet, when we asked industrial executives and board members in our Q1 2026 Executive Survey Panel who owns AI transformation outcomes in their organizations, 27% said ownership was still unclear or under discussion, the highest figure of any sector in our survey. Fewer than 3% said the CHRO owned it. The function most directly responsible for designing, communicating, and delivering workforce change has almost no formal role in the decisions that will permanently reshape the industrial workforce. 

The Calm Before the Storm

Industrial respondents told us a few things that, taken together, do not make sense. 

Only 16% expect 16% or more of their workforce to exit their roles or transition into new roles because of AI implementation within five years, the lowest figure of any sector in our survey. At the same time, 32% describe their organization’s cultural response to AI as showing no major shift yet, also the highest reading of any sector. Industrial leaders are planning for a relatively calm decade while reporting that their organizations have not yet begun the cultural work that any significant transition would require. 

The broader evidence suggests the calm is misplaced. McKinsey Global Institute research estimates that up to 30% of hours worked across European economies could be automated by 2030, with industrial roles among the most exposed. Deloitte’s 2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook found that 22% of manufacturers plan to deploy physical AI, including robotic dogs and humanoids, within two years. That is more than double current adoption. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers globally expect 22% of jobs to be disrupted by 2030, with industrial and production roles facing some of the largest transitions. 

Industrial leaders in our survey are looking at the same horizon as everyone else, but many are preparing for a milder version of it. 

The Missing Executive

The executive best equipped to close the gap between what industrial leaders expect and what is coming is the CHRO. The CHRO usually owns workforce planning, internal communication, the redesign of roles, the development of new capabilities, and the management of the human experience of change. Every one of those responsibilities is central to what AI and industrial robotics will do to the factory floor over the next five years. 

And yet, in the industrial organizations we surveyed, the CHRO is almost never the person leading AI transformation. 32% said the CEO owned it. Another 14% said the CTO or CIO owned it, and 11% assigned it to the CFO. The ownership model is technology-led or finance-led, with the workforce function on the edge of the conversation. 

That choice produces predictable outcomes. 41% of industrial respondents have not communicated with employees about which roles AI might change or eliminate. Another 22% described their communication as intentionally vague. The sector where the workforce conversation is most needed is the sector where it is least happening. 

What the CHRO Brings

An AI transformation led by a CTO tends to ask technical questions. What does the system do? How do we integrate it? What is the cost? An AI transformation led by a CFO tends to ask financial questions. What is the payback period? Where do we reduce headcount? What is the ROI? 

These are reasonable questions, but they do not surface the questions that determine whether the transformation actually works. Which roles will change and how? Who needs to be trained, and in what? How do we communicate with the workforce so we retain the people we need and support the people we do not? How do we redesign jobs so that the humans working alongside the robots are doing work that plays to human strengths rather than competing with machines on speed and precision? What does the employee value proposition look like in a plant where half the tasks are automated? 

A CHRO leading AI transformation asks those questions from the start. MIT Sloan research analyzing 19,000 tasks across 950 job types identified five capabilities where human workers continue to outperform machines: empathy, presence, opinion, creativity, and hope. The conclusion is that the future of work is not about what AI can take over, but about what humans do alongside it, and how organizations identify, develop, and protect those capabilities. That is CHRO work. It does not suggest the CHRO must own AI on their own. It suggests that AI transformation without serious workforce leadership is transformation that fails on the floor. 

What This Means for Industrial Boards

Boards overseeing industrial organizations should look at three things and ask whether the answers make sense given what the next five years will actually require. 

• Who is in the room when AI decisions are being made? If the CHRO is not there or is invited only when decisions have already been taken, that is worth questioning.  
• What has the organization told its employees about AI, specifically and in writing? Silence is not a neutral choice. It is a choice to let anxiety fill the gap.  
• Does the leadership team have the capability profile that the next phase requires? 60% of the industrial executives in our survey said their organization lacks vision beyond tactical AI implementation, and 57% said their C-suite lacks AI literacy. Those gaps only close through hiring, development, or succession planning. 

Industrial has always been a sector that understands the value of disciplined execution and clear accountability. Those habits have served the sector well in moments of technical change before. The question is whether the same discipline will be applied to the people side of AI with the same rigor that has been applied to the machinery. 

If the answer is no, the robots will arrive before the workforce is ready for them. And the cost of that will not be measured in units installed or throughput gained. It will be measured in the engagement, trust, and retention of the people the factory still needs. 

About the Author

Jan Duniec, Partner at Stanton Chase Warsaw, serves as Stanton Chase’s Global Industrial Sector Leader. Jan specializes in consulting for the industrial, technology, consumer products and services, and SCC/BPO business sectors. He brings to the table a wealth of international experience in business and plant management, gained through his work in the UK, France, and Poland.