Perceptyx has released new research showing a widening gap between what employees believe they need to learn and what they understand about their organizations’ future skill requirements. The findings suggest that many companies are providing learning opportunities without clearly connecting them to business strategy, career paths or emerging workforce needs—a challenge becoming more significant as AI changes job responsibilities and required capabilities.
Employees Know What They Want to Learn, But Not Why
Employees may be increasingly aware of the skills they need to develop, but many remain uncertain about which capabilities their employers will need in the future.
That is one of the central findings from Perceptyx’s new State of Learning and Development research, based on a July 2026 survey of 2,992 employed people across North America and Europe. The employee experience technology company found that 39% of respondents do not know which skills their organizations will need most in the future, even though 74% say they know which skills they personally need to develop.
The disconnect becomes more pronounced when employees are divided by organizational level. Perceptyx found that 75% of executives believe their organization has a clear learning strategy for the next one to two years, compared with only 43% of individual contributors—a 32-point difference.
The findings point to a challenge for HR and learning-and-development teams: providing more courses does not necessarily give employees a clear understanding of where their careers or the business are heading.
Learning Access Does Not Equal Career Clarity
Perceptyx found that 70% of employees say they have access to learning opportunities that could help them grow professionally. Yet 41% do not see career opportunities for themselves within their organizations.
The research also found that 44% of employees do not see a clear learning strategy for the next one to two years, while 40% do not believe their organization is actively helping employees develop skills for future roles.
Those results suggest a distinction between learning availability and workforce development strategy. Employees can have access to training libraries, courses and development programs while still lacking information about which capabilities matter to the company or how acquiring those capabilities could affect their career progression.
Perceptyx’s research indicates that learning itself is not necessarily the problem. Seventy-three percent of respondents say learning produces lasting behavior change, while 71% say it helps them perform their jobs more effectively.
The weaker results concern the environment around learning. Only 61% say learning programs are connected to broader business priorities, and 58% say employees have sufficient time during working hours for development.
AI Raises the Stakes for Skills Planning
The issue becomes more consequential as organizations incorporate generative AI into everyday work.
Perceptyx says six in 10 employees already use generative AI at work at least occasionally, while 57% report that their organizations are not helping employees develop the skills required for an AI-enabled workplace.
That finding aligns with a broader HR technology shift toward skills intelligence and continuous workforce development. Gartner reported in September that 95% of CHROs have active AI initiatives, while 51% of CIOs and senior IT leaders believe required skills are evolving faster than available talent. Gartner argues that organizations need to prioritize capabilities that evolve with AI rather than continually adding new skill requirements.
Gartner’s 2026 research on learning and development similarly calls for L&D functions to shift toward business-focused, AI-ready workforce development. Its May research says L&D organizations need to adapt their operating models as AI changes work, role design and skills.
For HR technology vendors, that changes the role of learning platforms. Traditional systems have largely focused on course administration, completion tracking and content delivery. The emerging model connects learning with skills data, workforce planning, employee listening, career mobility and business outcomes.
From Training Catalogs to Skills Intelligence
Perceptyx’s findings reinforce that transition.
Rather than treating learning as a collection of courses, organizations increasingly need to understand what capabilities the business requires, determine where current workforce skills fall short and show employees how development can address those gaps.
That approach also connects learning technology with employee experience. If employees understand which capabilities are becoming important, they can make more informed decisions about development. Managers can use the same information to support career conversations, while HR teams can connect learning investments with workforce planning.
Perceptyx’s own broader research describes this model as a continuous connection between employee listening and learning, where workforce feedback helps identify capability needs and measure whether development efforts lead to meaningful change.
The technology challenge is making those connections operational. HR platforms need to bring together employee sentiment, skills inventories, learning activity, career opportunities and organizational priorities without turning development into another disconnected HR workflow.
The Manager and Employee Experience Gap
The 32-point difference between executives and individual contributors also highlights an important employee-experience issue.
Executives may understand the organization’s strategic direction and therefore perceive the learning roadmap as clear. Individual contributors, however, experience that strategy through managers, communication, career opportunities and access to development during their normal working day.
If those connections are weak, employees may interpret learning programs as isolated training rather than preparation for future roles.
That matters for retention as well as workforce readiness. Employees who cannot see how their skills connect to future opportunities may have less visibility into internal mobility, even when learning resources are available.
For HR leaders, the emerging priority is therefore not simply increasing learning participation. It is making the relationship between business strategy, future skills, employee development and career progression visible to the workforce.
As AI continues to alter job requirements, that connection will become increasingly important. Organizations will need to identify the capabilities they expect to need, communicate those priorities clearly and give employees practical pathways to develop them.
Perceptyx’s research suggests that many companies have already built the learning infrastructure. The remaining challenge is connecting that infrastructure to a workforce strategy employees can actually see.
Market Landscape
The HRTech market is moving from standalone learning management toward integrated skills intelligence, workforce planning and employee experience platforms. Gartner’s 2026 research identifies AI readiness, adaptive learning and stronger alignment between L&D and changing business needs as major priorities for HR leaders.
At the same time, emerging learning technology is increasingly incorporating AI and skills-based approaches. Gartner’s September 2026 research describes agentic AI as a factor reshaping learning technology, as platforms move beyond tracking training toward workforce transformation.
Perceptyx’s findings add an employee perspective to that transition: organizations may have learning resources in place, but employees need greater visibility into the capabilities those resources are intended to build and where those capabilities can lead.
Top Insights
- Perceptyx found 39% of employees do not know which skills their organizations will need most in the future.
- A 32-point gap separates executives and individual contributors on whether their organizations have clear learning strategies.
- Seventy percent report access to career-development learning, yet 41% do not see career opportunities for themselves.
- Gartner says 95% of CHROs have active AI initiatives while required skills are evolving faster than talent supply.
- The research points toward skills-based, business-aligned learning rather than training measured primarily through course completion.
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