Tag: management

C-suite Outlook 2025 – Delivering Value in a Volatile World by the Weber Shandwick Collective

About the paper

The report examines how global C-suite leaders are thinking about value creation, stakeholder priorities and volatility in 2025.

It is based on original survey research: a short survey of 200 private-sector global business leaders from multinational companies operating across North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC, with fieldwork conducted from 14 November to 4 December 2024.

The sample includes companies headquartered in the United States and 22 other countries across five sectors, so the geographic scope is global, although the report presents only limited methodological detail beyond the sample profile.

Length: 9 pages

More information / download:
https://webershandwick.com/news/delivering-value-in-volatile-world

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about leadership in 2025?

The core argument is that CEOs and senior executives are entering 2025 with underlying optimism, but that optimism is tempered by a strong sense that the external environment remains unstable and difficult to control. On page 2, the report frames this tension directly: business leaders see relative macroeconomic stability compared with recent years, yet they remain highly alert to geopolitical disruption, market shocks, activism, policy change and other forces that can quickly alter the operating environment.

From that starting point, the report argues that corporate leadership now has to move beyond older, more polarised debates about shareholder primacy versus stakeholder capitalism. Its preferred framing is practical rather than ideological: the job of leadership is to define and deliver the specific mix of value that matters most to the stakeholders who shape the company’s success. In other words, the corporation’s role is presented not as serving one constituency at the expense of others, but as earning legitimacy and performance by managing a company-specific “value equation” across multiple stakeholder groups. This is the report’s main conceptual move, and it underpins everything that follows.

2. How do executives define “value”, and which forms of value matter most to them?

A major contribution of the report is that it treats value as multi-dimensional rather than purely financial. On page 4, executives rank five forms of value: economic value is highest at 98% importance, followed by functional value at 96%, ethical value at 88%, and both emotional and societal value at 78%. When respondents were asked to allocate relative weight across these categories, economic value received the largest share by far at 41%, compared with 24% for functional value, 14% for ethical value, 11% for societal value and 10% for emotional value.

That ranking shows two things at once. First, the report does not pretend that executives have become post-financial or post-commercial. Economic performance remains dominant. Secondly, it suggests that modern business leadership increasingly sees non-financial forms of value as part of business success rather than as optional extras. Ethical, societal and emotional value are not leading priorities, but they are still recognised by substantial majorities as important. The report therefore presents a broadened model of business value: financial performance sits at the centre, but it is strengthened or undermined by how companies function, behave and relate to stakeholders.

There is, however, an interesting gap between aspiration and performance. The page 4 chart on how well companies are delivering value across stakeholders shows strong perceived delivery on economic and functional value, but weaker performance on societal and especially emotional value. Fewer than a quarter say they are delivering societal or emotional value “very well”. So the report implies that executives recognise a wider value agenda more readily than they currently execute it.

3. Which stakeholders matter most in executive decision-making, and what does that reveal about the report’s perspective?

The report makes clear that stakeholder thinking is now mainstream among the leaders surveyed. On page 3, 99% say that considering the interests of multiple stakeholders is important. But the stakeholder model being described is not flat or equal. On page 5, customers rank first, with 99% saying they are important and 86% calling them very important. Investors and shareholders follow at 96%, and employees at 93%. Policymakers and government officials come next at 81%, with partners and suppliers and local communities both at 79%. Advocacy groups and non-profits rank much lower.

This hierarchy matters because it reveals the report’s practical worldview. It is not arguing that all stakeholders should be treated identically, nor that external advocacy pressure should dominate corporate decisions. Instead, it suggests a prioritised stakeholder model centred on those groups most directly tied to performance, legitimacy and licence to operate: customers, capital providers, employees, regulators and key operational partners. That is a more managerial and strategic version of stakeholder capitalism than a purely normative one.

The report also subtly signals that stakeholder management is becoming more political. The relatively high ranking of policymakers and government officials, combined with repeated references later in the report to regulation, geopolitics and public affairs, suggests that public policy is no longer a peripheral concern. It is becoming structurally central to the executive agenda, especially in a world where policy decisions can affect supply chains, investment flows, reputation and growth.

4. What does the research say about volatility, preparedness and growth prospects for 2025?

The report’s most important empirical message is that leaders feel materially less prepared for the kinds of disruptions they cannot control directly. On page 5, executives report greater confidence in handling internal or more familiar reputational threats, such as a major data breach, a company security threat, a health epidemic or a product recall. But preparedness drops sharply for external shocks such as global armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, political division after US elections, misinformation campaigns, natural disasters and actions by elected officials. This distinction is central: leaders are more comfortable with operational crises than with systemic volatility.

That matters because the report links growth prospects to the ability to deliver value under pressure. On page 6, only 17% of companies are described as in “high growth”, while 63% report moderate growth and 21% expect moderate or high contraction. Eight in ten companies therefore expect at least moderate growth, but the standout point is not exuberance. It is restraint. The report presents 2025 as a year of cautious forward movement rather than broad-based acceleration.

The priority data reinforces that interpretation. Revenue growth and profitability top the list of business priorities, but leaders also rank managing market volatility, investor expectations, business transformation, culture and workforce capability very highly. On page 7, the actions executives say they are taking include growing the business, launching products, adjusting governance structures, navigating AI, diversifying supply chains and responding more actively to policy and regulatory issues. So the report portrays growth not as a return to normal expansion, but as something that must be actively defended and engineered amid instability.

5. What are the report’s implications for communication and public affairs teams?

The clearest implication is that corporate communications and public affairs functions are becoming more strategically important, but many organisations are not yet confident that those teams are equipped for the task. On page 7, only 17% of executives say their communications and public affairs functions are “well equipped” to keep pace with rapid change, while 13% say their confidence in those functions has decreased. The report therefore identifies a capability gap at exactly the point where volatility makes communication, public affairs and reputation management more consequential.

The practical implications are spelled out most fully on page 8 in the “new rules” section. The report argues that value creation must start at the top, that CEOs need to prepare now for future volatility, that organisations must actively manage controllable volatility such as mis- and disinformation, that AI should support decision-making, and that the policy environment will become more demanding in 2025. In effect, communications is being repositioned from a downstream messaging function to an upstream strategic capability that helps leadership sense, interpret and respond to threats and expectations.

For a communications reader, the most significant underlying message is this: communicators are not merely being asked to explain value after the fact. They are increasingly expected to help organisations define value, map stakeholder expectations, detect volatility early, prepare response systems, and support CEO judgement in real time. At the same time, the report suggests that many firms have not yet invested enough in these capabilities. So its conclusion is both elevating and cautionary: communications teams are needed more than ever, but they must upskill and become more operationally strategic if they are to meet the expectations being placed on them.

One caution is worth noting. Because the report is based on a relatively short survey of 200 leaders and is presented in a highly synthesised, infographic-style format, it is better read as a directional executive sentiment study than as a deeply elaborated academic analysis. Even so, it offers a clear and useful picture of how senior leaders are framing the challenge of 2025: deliver growth and stakeholder value, but do so in a world where volatility is persistent, political and increasingly external to managerial control.

30 January 2025
Future of Professionals Report 2024 by Thomson Reuters
About the paper

Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report 2024 examines how AI and GenAI are reshaping professional work across legal, tax, accounting, global trade, risk, fraud, compliance, government, and corporate C-suite roles.

It is original survey research based on 2,205 responses collected through 15–20 minute surveys, with respondents across the United States, UK, Canada, Mainland Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East/North Africa.

The report is heavily AI-focused because respondents identify AI as the dominant force currently driving change in professional services.

Length: 37 pages

More information / download:
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/technology/future-of-professionals-2024/

Core Insights

1. What is the central argument of the report?

The report argues that AI and GenAI are now the dominant forces reshaping professional work, not as distant possibilities but as practical technologies already influencing strategy, workflows, value creation, pricing models, and career expectations.

The strongest evidence is that 77% of respondents believe AI will have a high or transformational impact on their work over the next five years, up from 67% in the 2023 report. The report presents this as a shift from speculative concern to more concrete expectation: professionals are no longer merely wondering whether AI matters; they are beginning to understand where and how it will affect their daily work.

The report’s tone is notably optimistic. Thomson Reuters concludes that AI can make professional work more efficient, productive, and fulfilling. It repeatedly frames AI as a way to release professionals from routine or labour-intensive tasks so they can focus on judgement-based, strategic, client-facing, and higher-value work.

However, the report does not argue that AI adoption will be automatic or risk-free. Its central argument is conditional: AI can be a force for good, but only if organisations combine adoption with responsible use, human oversight, data security, transparency, training, and new business models.

2. How are professionals currently using AI, and what does this reveal about adoption maturity?

Current AI use appears practical but still relatively early-stage. Respondents most commonly use AI-powered technologies for drafting documents, summarising information, conducting basic research, preparing communications, reviewing documents, and generating first drafts.

The report says 50% of respondents who have used AI as a starting point describe its output as “a basic starting point” where they still need to do most of the work. Another 28% say it provides “a strong starting point” that mainly requires editing. This suggests that AI is already useful, but professionals still see it primarily as an assistant rather than an autonomous producer of reliable final work.

The main barriers among non-users are also revealing. Concerns centre on accuracy, data security, ethics, uncertainty about what AI can be used for, and uncertainty about how to access it. The report notes generational differences too: Gen Z professionals have tried AI at higher rates, while baby boomers show lower current usage but surprisingly ambitious expectations for future AI assistance.

The adoption picture is therefore mixed: AI is already embedded in common professional tasks, but many users still regard it as a productivity aid that requires significant human review. The report’s own interpretation is that trust will depend on transparency, benchmarking, responsible innovation, and better user education.

3. What productivity and value gains does the report expect from AI?

The report’s most concrete productivity claim is that AI could free up four hours per professional per week within one year, eight hours within three years, and twelve hours within five years. Based on an assumption of 48 working weeks per year, that would equal roughly 200, 400, and 600 hours respectively.

This is one of the report’s most important findings because it connects AI adoption to organisational strategy. Freed-up time is not presented simply as a cost-saving mechanism. Respondents say they would use additional time for work-life balance, client work, long-term projects, business development, process improvement, strategic planning, research, training, and better workload management.

The report also distinguishes between efficiency and value. More than half of professionals are excited about AI because of time savings and productivity improvements, but 39% are most excited about AI’s ability to add new value to their work. Examples include handling large volumes of data more effectively, improving client response times, reducing human error, enabling advanced analytics, and supporting better decision-making.

This distinction is crucial. The report does not merely say AI will help professionals do the same work faster. It argues that AI may allow professional services to change what kind of work is done, what quality of service is delivered, and where professionals focus their expertise.

4. What risks, ethical concerns, and governance needs does the report identify?

The report identifies several persistent concerns:
- accuracy of outputs
- data security
- ethical use
- overreliance on AI
- inadequate human judgement
- and unclear accountability.
These concerns are especially important because the professions covered in the report often involve legal, regulatory, financial, compliance, or high-stakes advisory work.

Professionals draw a clear ethical boundary around full AI autonomy in high-stakes professional judgement. More than 95% of legal and tax respondents say it would be a step too far for AI to represent clients in court or make final decisions on complex professional matters. Legal professionals are particularly resistant to AI providing legal advice, while respondents in tax, risk, fraud, and compliance appear somewhat less opposed to AI involvement in strategic advice.

The report finds no single consensus on responsible AI use, but several principles recur. Almost two-thirds of respondents see data security as vital, both for prompts and outputs. A similar share see compulsory human review as critical. Other important elements include transparency about data sources, clarity on which tasks AI may be used for, bias mitigation, deletion of personal data, and standards for training data.

On enforcement, respondents favour certification processes for AI systems and standards developed by professional or industry bodies. Government regulation, company guidelines, whistleblowing, and algorithm audits are also mentioned, but the report presents certification and professional standards as the leading options.

5. What are the broader implications for professional careers, leadership, and business models?

The report’s broader implication is that AI will shift the nature of professional work rather than simply eliminate it. Fear of widespread job loss appears less prominent than in the previous year’s report. Instead, 85% of respondents believe new or additional roles will be created to manage broader AI use.

The human skills expected to become more important include problem-solving, creativity, judgement, strategic thinking, and the ability to manage AI responsibly. The report therefore frames the future professional not as someone replaced by AI, but as someone who must become better at using AI while preserving human expertise.

For leaders, the report implies that AI adoption is not just an IT project. It affects talent strategy, operating models, pricing, client value, workflow design, risk management, and organisational culture. Leaders are advised to assess skills, invest in training, create responsible AI principles, run pilot projects, scale successful use cases, and explore how AI can open new sources of stakeholder value.

The pricing implication is especially significant for professional services firms. Many respondents expect hourly-rate pricing to decline over the next five years. As AI makes routine work faster, firms will need to explain why clients should still pay premium fees for work completed more efficiently. The report argues that firms must move towards value-based pricing and become better at articulating the value AI adds beyond speed.

The conclusion is optimistic but demanding: AI can make professional careers more fulfilling and organisations more competitive, but only for those that actively embrace the technology, redesign work around it, and take responsibility for its limits.
9 July 2024
State of the Global Workplace 2024 by Gallup

About the paper

The report examines the state of employee engagement, wellbeing and mental health worldwide, and argues that work quality, labour conditions and especially management quality shape both employee wellbeing and organisational performance.

It is a mixed-methods report based primarily on Gallup World Poll survey data, supplemented by follow-up interviews with employees and a secondary Labour Rights Index; the 2023 dataset includes 128,278 employed respondents aged 15+ and the long-run trend dataset covers 2,336,570 employed respondents from 2009–2023, with global polling spanning more than 160 countries and areas.

Length: 152 pages

More information / download:
https://www.scribd.com/document/758783089/state-of-the-global-workplace-2024-download

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about the relationship between work and employee wellbeing?

The report’s central argument is that work is not just an economic activity but a major driver of people’s daily emotional health and overall life evaluation. Gallup frames the workplace as a key site where mental health can either worsen or improve, depending on the quality of employees’ experiences, especially their level of engagement and the way they are managed. The report explicitly links low engagement to weak wellbeing and estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy US$8.9 trillion, equal to 9% of global GDP.

A core idea running through the report is that poor work experiences spill into life outside work. Employees who dislike their jobs are described as having high levels of daily stress and worry, and in several cases their emotional profile is as bad as, or worse than, that of unemployed people. By contrast, employees who are engaged at work are much more likely to enjoy their daily lives and to be thriving overall. The report therefore treats employee engagement not as a soft HR metric, but as a serious indicator of human and organisational health.

2. What does the report show about the global state of employee mental health and engagement in 2023?

The report presents a mixed picture. Global employee engagement stalled in 2023 at 23%, while overall wellbeing declined slightly from 35% to 34% thriving. At the same time, 41% of employees reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day, 22% sadness, 21% anger and 20% loneliness. These figures support Gallup’s broader claim that most of the world’s employees are still struggling at work and in life, even if some long-term indicators remain near record highs.

Two patterns stand out particularly strongly. First, loneliness is a major issue: one in five employees globally report daily loneliness, and this rises to 25% among fully remote workers, compared with 16% among fully on-site workers. Second, younger workers appear to be losing ground. The drop in wellbeing in 2023 was concentrated among employees under 35, which the report treats as a significant warning sign for leaders.

The report also shows that engagement sharply differentiates employee experience. The chart on page 8 shows that 54% of actively disengaged employees report stress, compared with 34% of engaged employees, while 50% of engaged employees are thriving versus only 17% of actively disengaged employees. That is one of the report’s clearest empirical messages: the emotional gap between engaged and disengaged employees is large and consequential.

3. How do economics, labour protections and job-market conditions influence employee wellbeing?

Gallup argues that employee wellbeing is shaped not only by immediate workplace experience but also by broader structural conditions. One of the clearest findings is that countries where people believe it is a good time to find a job tend to have lower active disengagement. The report interprets this to mean that workers in healthier job markets have more freedom to leave bad employment situations, whereas those in weak labour markets may feel trapped in jobs they dislike. Importantly, Gallup says this relationship is stronger for active disengagement than for engagement: better economic conditions may reduce bitterness, but they do not automatically create inspiration.

The report also introduces the Labour Rights Index, which tracks the presence or absence of 46 labour-related statutes across 135 countries. It finds that stronger labour protections are positively associated with better present life evaluation, especially in areas such as maternity protections, fair wages, social security, employment security, fair treatment and safety. However, Gallup is careful to note that the index measures the existence of laws, not their enforcement, and that these relationships are analysed while controlling for income and demographic variables.

At the same time, Gallup does not present labour protections as a substitute for engagement. Instead, it argues that the strongest emotional outcomes appear when supportive policy environments and engaged work experiences coincide. On page 15, the table shows that engaged employees in countries in the upper half of the Labour Rights Index report lower stress, sadness, loneliness, anger and worry than comparable employees in lower-protection settings. This supports one of the report’s more nuanced conclusions: labour law and engagement are complementary, not competing, sources of worker wellbeing.

4. Why does the report place such strong emphasis on managers?

The report treats the manager as the decisive lever inside organisations. Its clearest claim is that managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement. That makes management quality, in Gallup’s view, more important for engagement than broad macro conditions such as economic context or labour protections. When managers are engaged, employees are more likely to be engaged too, and this relationship is visible even at the country level.

But Gallup also adds an important complication: managers themselves are under strain. The report says managers are more likely than non-managers to be engaged and thriving, yet they are also more likely to feel stressed, angry, sad and lonely, and more likely to be looking for another job. That means managers are both the mechanism through which engagement is created and a group whose own wellbeing may be deteriorating. The implication is that organisations cannot simply ask managers to support others while ignoring managers’ own emotional load.

The report’s practical argument follows from this. Great managers create engagement through goal-setting, meaningful feedback, accountability and an ongoing relationship grounded in respect, positivity and knowledge of each employee’s strengths. In the report’s logic, employee engagement is relational rather than procedural. That is why Gallup repeatedly returns to the manager-employee relationship as the main channel through which people move from indifference to inspiration.

5. What conclusions does the report draw for leaders and organisations?

The report’s overall conclusion is that organisations should stop treating wellbeing as something that can be fixed mainly with apps, perks or resilience training, and focus instead on the structural and managerial conditions of work itself. Gallup argues that poor management practices are a major source of employee stress, and that meaningful improvements come from organisation-level changes such as better management, better scheduling, better resources and better job design.

It also argues that high-engagement organisations do not emerge by accident. On pages 20–21, Gallup says best-practice organisations reach engagement rates far above the global norm, with roughly three-fourths of managers and seven in 10 non-managers engaged. These organisations prioritise manager hiring and development, integrate engagement into the full employee and manager life cycle, and make wellbeing visible and consistent in both work and life support.

Finally, the report ties these cultural and managerial choices to hard performance outcomes. Its conclusion cites Gallup’s 2024 meta-analysis of more than 183,000 business units across 53 industries and 90 countries, showing that highly engaged teams are associated with better wellbeing, productivity, profitability, customer loyalty, retention and safety. So the report’s final message is both human and commercial: improving engagement is not merely about making employees feel better; it is a route to stronger organisational performance.

A point worth noting about the methodology is that, while the report is robust in scale and clear about its survey base, it combines different evidence types: original global survey research, follow-up qualitative interviews, and secondary legal-policy data from the Labour Rights Index. That makes it analytically rich, but some of its policy conclusions are associative rather than strictly causal.

12 June 2024
FGS Global Radar 2024: A Year of Volatility by FGS

About the paper

The report is a mixed-methods outlook study on the political, economic, technological and social forces expected to shape 2024, with a particular focus on implications for business.

It combines 60 stakeholder depth interviews conducted in October and November 2023 with public polling of 2,024 UK adults, weighted to be nationally representative; the geographic scope of the primary data is clearly the UK, even though many of the issues discussed are global.

Length: 23 pages

More information / download:
https://a.storyblok.com/f/137553/x/db3cf37498/fgs-global-radar-report-2024.pdf

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about 2024, and why does it frame the year as unusually consequential?

The report’s central argument is that 2024 will be defined by volatility, uncertainty, disruption and change, but not in a purely apocalyptic sense: it also presents openings for adaptation, resilience and selective optimism. The authors frame the year as unusually consequential because it combines an exceptional concentration of elections, continuing geopolitical conflicts, economic fragility, climate pressure, AI disruption and changing expectations of business leadership.

The report begins by describing 2024 as a year of “known-unknowns”, with particular emphasis on the fact that more people would be involved in elections than at any other point in human history, and with the US election treated as the most consequential uncertainty. Rather than trying to predict exact outcomes, the study aims to identify the trends and debates that will affect business during the year. That is an important framing choice: this is not a forecasting model, but a strategic interpretation exercise grounded in elite interviews and public opinion data.

Its key findings reinforce that framing. Opinion formers expect uncertainty and turbulence across geopolitics, the economy, culture and the workplace. They see volatility as more likely to intensify than fade. At the same time, they hold a mildly more positive view of the UK’s prospects than the public does, largely because they expect some political stabilisation after the UK general election and some easing in inflation and interest rates. So the report’s core argument is not simply that 2024 will be chaotic, but that business leaders will have to navigate overlapping shocks while distinguishing between background noise and genuinely strategic shifts.

2. Which major risks and uncertainties does the report identify as most important for business leaders?

The report identifies political instability and geopolitics as the most important risk cluster for business leaders. Stakeholders describe political instability as the biggest risk facing business in 2024, driven by major elections, continuing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the growing influence of non-democratic states. The phrase “uncertainty is the new certainty” captures the report’s broader diagnosis: unpredictable external shocks are no longer exceptional but normalised.

Within that broader risk picture, the potential return of Donald Trump is treated as the single most significant political threat. Stakeholders widely believe a Trump victory is a real possibility and fear that a second term would be more unconstrained than the first, with consequences for NATO, Ukraine, global trade and geopolitical stability. Importantly, the report notes that this concern is less about the resilience of the US domestic economy and more about the international effects of American foreign policy and political posture. The public polling echoes this anxiety, with large shares of UK respondents expecting another Trump presidency to destabilise the world and negatively affect their own lives.

The report also highlights immigration as a major source of political polarisation, especially in the UK, Europe and the US. Stakeholders expect it to become an even more contentious election issue, sharpened by climate-related migration pressures and labour-market tensions. This matters for business because immigration is not presented merely as a social issue; it is bound up with economic policy, labour supply, social cohesion and electoral strategy.

Beyond politics, the report emphasises supply-chain vulnerability, energy-price shocks and the strategic consequences of long-running conflict. Several interviewees argue that resilience now matters as much as profit, and that businesses will have to think more seriously about de-risking supply chains. The report stops short of advocating a single economic doctrine, but it clearly suggests that geopolitical risk is now a boardroom issue rather than a distant policy concern.

3. How does the report portray the economic outlook, and where do stakeholder and public perspectives diverge most sharply?

The report portrays the economic outlook as cautiously stable rather than buoyant. Stakeholders broadly expect a middling global year and a mildly positive UK year, shaped by falling inflation, eventual interest-rate cuts and the likelihood of a more stable UK political environment. They do not foresee dramatic economic improvement, but neither do they expect collapse. In that sense, the report’s economic lens is one of guarded pragmatism.

For the UK specifically, stakeholders are relatively bullish. They associate an expected Labour victory with greater predictability, continuity in fiscal policy and a calmer investment environment after years of political turmoil. They also expect inflation and interest rates to decline over the course of 2024, though some note that the timing of monetary easing may be late and its effects delayed. This is not presented as a growth boom, but as a return to something closer to normality.

The sharpest divergence appears between elite and public sentiment. The UK public is markedly more pessimistic than stakeholders, especially on the cost of living, living standards and the broader strength of the economy. The report shows net negative expectations on the cost of living, personal standard of living and the UK economy, even if job security is slightly more resilient. Public pessimism is also intensified by concern that prolonged wars will push up energy prices again. So while stakeholders see scope for stabilisation, the public sees little immediate relief.

That divergence matters because it reveals one of the report’s underlying themes: macro-level improvement does not automatically translate into felt improvement. A steadier political environment and lower inflation may look positive from a policy or business perspective, but ordinary people may still experience stagnation, pressure and distrust. The report therefore suggests that leaders will need to communicate with much greater sensitivity to this gap between institutional optimism and lived economic insecurity.

4. What does the report say about AI, and why does it treat it as both an opportunity and a source of backlash?

The report treats AI as one of the defining contradictions of 2024: it is seen as a potentially transformative engine of productivity and growth, but also as a source of labour disruption, democratic risk and public unease. Stakeholders are generally more optimistic than the public. They expect AI to boost economic growth, unlock gains in medicine and science, and accelerate efficiency. At the same time, they anticipate redundancies in white-collar fields such as customer service, software development and communications, with some even arguing that entry-level roles across many industries are vulnerable.

This combination of optimism and anxiety explains why the report expects backlash. Interviewees warn that AI could be used to distort elections through deepfakes and misinformation, undermining democratic legitimacy during an election-heavy year. They also foresee organised labour resistance, treating the 2023 actors’ strike as an early sign of broader anti-AI mobilisation. The public data supports this: a majority expects increased backlash, including further strikes, and many support faster government regulation to protect against security breaches and misinformation.

Another important point is that the public is less confident and less informed about AI than elite stakeholders. Only a small minority say they are very confident they could explain what AI is, and attitudes differ sharply by age, gender and self-reported tech literacy. Younger people and those more confident in explaining AI are more positive; older respondents and less confident groups are notably more negative. This suggests that public opinion on AI is shaped not just by material risk, but by familiarity and perceived agency.

The report therefore presents AI as a major battleground for 2024, not because it doubts the technology’s momentum, but because it expects a struggle over who benefits, who bears the costs and how regulation should work. That is why it frames the coming debate as not merely technological, but economic, political and social.

5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about climate, corporate purpose and the role of business in society?

The report suggests that businesses are entering 2024 under pressure to become more disciplined, more internally focused and more credible in how they talk about their role in society. On climate, stakeholders agree that the issue is strategically central and that no serious business leader or politician can now deny its importance. Yet they are pessimistic about actual progress towards net zero in 2024, citing weak political will, high investment requirements, election-year caution and unresolved disputes over who pays. The result is a gap between rhetorical commitment and practical momentum.

The public broadly shares the sense that climate change matters, but the report shows limits to public willingness to absorb the cost. That creates a politically difficult environment: there is acknowledgement of urgency, but less agreement on sacrifice. The report’s interpretation is that democratic politics, especially short electoral cycles, favours short-term decisions, whereas climate action demands long-term commitment. This is one of its clearest structural arguments.

On corporate purpose, the report argues that purpose remains important but that its public expression is changing. Many stakeholders believe external purpose messaging has become entangled with accusations of virtue signalling and greenwashing. As a result, they expect companies and CEOs to retreat from broad social commentary and focus more on purpose that is directly relevant to the business and more meaningfully communicated to employees and communities. This is not a rejection of purpose, but a repositioning of it.

The same logic appears in workplace culture. Hybrid working is described as here to stay, though not as a case for full-time remote work becoming universal. Stakeholders and the public both expect flexibility to remain important, and the public wants even more of it. Taken together, the report’s broader conclusion is that businesses in 2024 will need to act with restraint, relevance and credibility: less grandstanding, more internal alignment; less abstract signalling, more evidence and substance.

Overall, the report’s perspective is that business leadership in 2024 will be judged not by confidence alone, but by the ability to operate in a world of overlapping instability while making selective, defensible choices about what to engage in, what to say and how to build trust.

9 January 2024
Future of Professionals Report 2023 by Thomson Reuters

About the paper

Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report 2023 examines how AI, especially generative AI, is expected to transform professional work across legal, tax and accounting, risk, compliance, corporate and government settings.

It is original survey research based on a web survey conducted in May–June 2023 among more than 1,200 professionals, with about half based in the US and most of the rest in the UK, Canada and Latin America.

The report combines survey findings with Thomson Reuters’ own interpretive commentary, so it should be read as a research-based thought leadership report rather than a neutral academic study.

Length: 36 pages

More information / download:
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/technology/future-of-professionals-2023/

Core Insights

1. What is the central argument of the report?

The report’s central argument is that AI will not merely make professional work faster; it will reshape the value proposition of professional services. Thomson Reuters presents AI as a catalyst for transformation across three linked dimensions: productivity, professional value, and responsible adoption.

The productivity argument is the most immediate. Professionals expect AI to help with operational efficiency, research, document review, drafting, administrative work, risk identification, regulatory monitoring and client communication. The report repeatedly frames AI as a way to remove repetitive or low-value work so that professionals can spend more time on higher-value advisory tasks.

The deeper argument is about the future role of professionals. The report suggests that “Professional 2.0” will be less defined by routine technical execution and more by judgement, strategic advice, client service, specialisation, and the ability to use AI effectively. It argues that AI will shift professionals from doing more work manually to orchestrating, checking, interpreting and adding value to AI-enabled work.

The report is optimistic, but not naïvely so. It recognises fears around accuracy, job loss, ethics, data security, regulation, work-life balance and professional identity. However, Thomson Reuters’ overall position is clear: AI will not replace highly trained professionals wholesale, but professionals who use AI will outcompete those who do not.

2. How do professionals expect AI to affect productivity, client service and business performance?

Professionals in the report are broadly positive about AI’s operational potential. A key headline finding is that 67% expect AI or generative AI to have a transformational or high impact on their profession over the next five years. That makes AI the most significant trend tested in the study, ahead of economic recession and the cost-of-living crisis.

The report identifies several productivity gains. In law firms, AI is expected to help with large-scale data analysis, non-billable administrative work, time recording, research and document-related tasks. In tax and accounting, respondents see potential in analysing deductions, income streams, tax scenarios and future tax results. In corporate and government departments, AI is expected to streamline internal processes, reduce external spend, improve research and speed up document review.

Client service is another major theme. Respondents expect AI to improve the speed, clarity and consistency of communication. The report mentions AI helping draft and edit client communications, translate complex ideas into plain language, identify client needs arising from regulatory change, and support faster internal advice. For in-house teams, the report suggests that AI may strengthen their role as business partners by helping them provide more consultative, growth-oriented advice.

However, the financial consequences are less clear. Firms may become more profitable if AI reduces costs and frees professionals for higher-value work. At the same time, clients may use AI as a reason to push fees down, move more work in-house, or turn to alternative legal service providers. The report does not claim certainty here; it explicitly notes that the “financial victor” remains uncertain.

3. What evidence does the report provide that AI will change professional roles, skills and career paths?

The report argues that AI will fundamentally alter who does professional work, what skills are valued, and how people enter and progress within the professions.

One of the strongest findings is that 64% of professionals believe AI will make their professional skills more highly valued, while 33% fear that AI could contribute to the demise of their profession or reduce demand for their skills. This tension runs throughout the report: professionals see opportunity, but also existential risk.

The report expects new career paths to emerge. It suggests that some work currently performed by credentialed professionals may shift to paralegals, junior professionals, enrolled agents, legal tech consultants, operations specialists or other non-traditional roles. It also anticipates more hybrid roles combining professional expertise with technology, data science, IT, security, regulatory and AI skills.

Training is presented as one of the clearest areas of change. Almost 90% of respondents expect basic mandatory AI training for all professionals within five years, and 87% expect everyone to need training in new skills. The report also predicts changes in how junior professionals are trained and in the nature of university or college education.

A particularly important nuance is that AI may reduce traditional entry-level work. More than half of respondents expect a decline in entry-level roles over the next five years, yet a majority also expect the total number of professionals in their firm or department to increase. In other words, the report does not predict simple job destruction. It predicts a reshaping of the professional labour market: fewer traditional junior tasks, more specialised or AI-enabled roles, and greater need for adaptability.

4. What are the main concerns, risks and barriers identified in the report?

The report identifies several overlapping concerns.

The biggest fear is accuracy. A quarter of respondents cite compromised accuracy as their greatest concern. This is especially important because professionals work in fields where errors can have legal, financial, ethical or regulatory consequences. The report stresses that AI outputs must be checked by humans rather than accepted at face value.

Job loss and professional displacement are also major concerns. Nineteen per cent cite widespread job loss as their biggest fear, while 17% cite the demise of the profession. Some respondents fear that AI may “dumb down” professional judgement if people rely on machine-generated answers without understanding the underlying reasoning.

Ethics and data security are also prominent. Fifteen per cent cite data security as their biggest fear, and another 15% cite loss of ethics. The report connects these concerns to the need for transparency, explainability, trustworthy sources, professional standards and regulation.

The biggest barrier to change is cultural rather than technical. The report says 83% of professionals cite risk aversion or fear of change as a top-three barrier within the professions. Lack of technology skills, lack of investment, partnership models, and lack of diversity of thought are also identified as obstacles.

Finally, the report is ambivalent on wellbeing. AI could reduce long hours, lower the risk of errors, and remove mundane work. But some respondents fear it could increase pressure, reduce human connection, worsen engagement, or create anxiety about disposability. The report therefore treats wellbeing as both a potential benefit and a risk depending on how AI is implemented.

5. What is Thomson Reuters’ perspective, and what are the implications of the report?

Thomson Reuters’ perspective is strongly pro-adoption, but framed around responsible implementation. The company argues that AI should be embraced decisively, but with guardrails around trust, ethics, transparency, accuracy, regulation and human oversight.

Its assumptions are visible throughout the report. Thomson Reuters assumes that AI adoption is inevitable, that productivity gains will be substantial, and that the professions will be reshaped rather than destroyed. It also assumes that the highest-value professional work will remain human-centred: advice, judgement, client relationships, ethics, interpretation and strategic thinking.

The report’s implications are significant. For firms, it suggests a need to rethink pricing, services, staffing models, training and competitive advantage. For in-house departments, it suggests an opportunity to move from cost centres to growth enablers, particularly if AI helps them deliver more consultative advice and bring more work in-house. For individual professionals, the implication is that passive adaptation will not be enough. They will need to develop AI literacy, deepen expertise, understand their own value proposition, and learn how to work with AI rather than around it.

The broader conclusion is that trust will be the decisive condition for AI adoption in professional work. Without confidence in accuracy, data security, ethics and explainability, the promised productivity gains may not materialise. With the right governance, however, the report argues that AI can improve productivity, increase professional value, create new roles, support better client service and potentially improve wellbeing.

22 August 2023