AI tops corporate training priorities, but soft skills remain essential: Survey

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As Hong Kong companies advance AI capability building across all staff levels, data analytics, problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal skills remain key training priorities.

Corporate training is increasingly taking a dual-track approach, with organisations investing in both artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and essential human skills, according to a latest survey by the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management (HKIHRM).

For the first time, AI technology emerged as the top training area identified as important by the largest number of surveyed companies across senior management, middle management, junior staff levels. At the same time, soft skills such as data analytics, problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal skills remained among the highest-ranked training priorities.

The 2025/2026 Training and Development Needs Survey was conducted between 10 February and 30 April 2026, gathering 127 valid responses from companies across 18 different industries and of varying sizes, involving nearly 80,000 full-time employees.

The findings showed that the average number of training hours per employee rose for a second consecutive year, reaching 19.4 hours in 2025 – up 6.8% from 18.1 hours in 2024 and nearly 50% higher than the 12.9 hours recorded in 2020. This marks the highest level since 2011, when the figure stood at 19.9 hours.

Companies have also become notably more proactive about building AI capabilities. Over four-fifths (82%) of surveyed companies said they allow employees to use generative AI tools at work, a significant increase of nine percentage points from 73% in 2024. Meanwhile, the proportion that prohibits AI use fell from 7% to 4%, while those uncertain about its use declined from 20% to 14%, reflecting a shift from a wait-and-see approach to the normalised use of AI.

As AI adoption accelerates, AI technology emerged as the most important training area across all three employee groups among surveyed companies. Middle management recorded the highest level of attention (61%), followed by senior management (58%) and individual contributors or junior staff (54%), suggesting that companies are simultaneously advancing AI capability building at both strategic and operational levels.

Companies step up AI training investments

In terms of investment, 73% of surveyed companies allocated a budget for employee training and development in 2025, with actual spending accounting for 2.5% of total annual base salary.

The overall outlook for 2026 remains relatively stable. While 61% of respondents expect training budgets to remain unchanged, 20% plan to increase spending and 19% anticipate a reduction, broadly in line with last year's trend.

To improve training effectiveness, flexibility, and cost efficiency, more and more companies are adopting online learning platforms and AI-assisted learning tools. The survey showed that companies maintained or even increased their volume of training through online learning (adopted by 92% of companies) and digital tools, up from 90% last year.

The usage of AI learning tools also surged from 16% in 2024 to 40%, jumping from seventh place last year to fourth place, and rapidly becoming an important component of corporate training.

Top three digital learning tools:

• webinars/virtual classrooms (75%)
• training videos (63%)
• digital learning portals/e-learning libraries (53%)

Findings from a supplementary Quick Poll conducted between 27 April and 8 May 2026 among 96 Hong Kong employers revealed that AI-enabled learning is steadily becoming a mainstream component of corporate talent development:

• 29% of surveyed companies have already integrated AI-assisted tools into their employee training systems
• 14% plan to do so within 2026
• 24% expect to implement them by 2027
• only 32% reported having no plans to introduce AI-assisted training

From a resource allocation perspective, companies continue to adopt a flexible integration approach. Among companies that have already introduced or plan to introduce AI training by 2027, 57% fund AI training through their overall learning and development budgets, while 37% adopt a project-based funding model. Only 6% have established dedicated AI training budgets.

The findings indicate that while organisations broadly recognise the strategic importance of AI training and digital literacy development, a standalone, long-term AI training investment framework has yet to be fully established.

Human skills remain critical alongside AI

As for the learning and development priorities for 2026, leadership development continues to be the top priority at 50%; while mastering generative AI for learning surged dramatically from 23% in 2025 to 49%, rising from sixth place to second place.

Despite the growing emphasis on AI, companies are increasingly aware of the unique human value in judgement, communication, and collaboration, and are simultaneously strengthening soft skills training to ensure that technology and human capabilities are mutually complementary.

In 2025, “soft skills” such as data analytics, problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal skills remained consistently among the most important training priorities.

Training priorities, however, differ across staff levels:

• Senior management placed the greatest emphasis on change management (51%), strategic thinking (50%), and business innovation (44%).
• Middle management focuses on coaching/mentoring and managing performance (44%), problem-solving, and communication/interpersonal skills (43%).
• Individual contributors and junior staff ranked communication and interpersonal skills as the primary concern (50%), followed by customer service and health and safety (43%).

“Digital learning is not intended to replace face-to-face training,” said Charles Ho, Co-chairperson of the HKIHRM Learning and Development Committee. “In areas that require a high level of interaction, immediate feedback and hands-on practice – such as leadership development, team collaboration and change management – in-person training remains irreplaceable”

“AI is not about reducing headcount, but about upskilling and reskilling employees so they can move into higher value-added roles. Organisations should also develop inhouse expertise with governance and risk management capabilities to ensure applications are safe, compliant and able to deliver maximum value,” he added.

Dr. Chester Tsang, HKIHRM’s Executive Council Member and Co-chairperson of the Learning and Development Committee, concluded: “Employee training should not focus solely on technical proficiency, but also encompass integrity, a strong sense of responsibility, and compliance awareness, ensuring that technology adoption advances within an ethical and well-governed framework. Future competitiveness is not merely a contest of technology, but of talent quality, governance capability, and learning culture.”

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