How human skills give PwC the advantage in the AI world of work

“Investing in human skills is not just preparation for the future of work, it is the foundation of the future of growth.”

Those are the words of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Managing Director, Saadia Zahidi.

Historically, human skills have been “dismissed” as soft, but they have “become the hard currency of the labor market”, according to a new WEF whitepaper on skills and how they unlock the human advantage.

Ultimately, “the world urgently needs new ways to value, assess and credential human capabilities”, concluded the WEF.

One organization that is leading the way is PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

UNLEASH sat down with the $57 billion-revenue consulting giant’s US Chief People & Inclusion Officer, Yolanda Seals-Coffield, to get the inside track on PwC’s decisions on skills and learning in the AI reality of work.

Here’s how the consulting firm is prioritizing human skills and re-envisioning learning for its 350,000 staff worldwide – and 80,000 in the US under Seals-Coffield’s stewardship.

Read on to see how a focus on human skills truly drives business competitive advantage.

At PwC, true value from AI comes from the ‘human edge’

“What makes us incredible as a professional services firm is the context and the human capabilities that we bring to our work”, Seals-Coffield exclusively tells UNLEASH.

“While we need to grow, develop and do things differently in the age of AI, we would be remiss if we lose sight of that it is truly our unique human qualities” that drive PwC’s competitive advantage. Seals-Coffield calls this the ‘human edge’.

For PwC, the value from AI isn’t just what it produces, but “how people question it, how people refine it, how people guide the outputs to drive better outcomes for our clients”.

“If AI is going to help us [move] faster, which is amazing, we need to be really intentional”, “really pause and evaluate what you’re looking at, make sure that it makes sense, that it answers the question, that it is, in fact, accurate”.

Only humans, and their context, experience and skills, can “make sure that we are delivering the right outputs” for the firm and its clients.

Therefore, as PwC invests in new technology “that enables us to deliver faster, more seamlessly and takes some of the repeatable tasks”, there’s a need to think carefully about the skills that our people will need to thrive.

So, PwC identified 30 skills – 15 technical and 15 human – that are critical.

On the human skill side, these include curiosity, critical thinking, empathy, adaptability, creativity and AI-human collaboration, while the AI skills move beyond basics, and focus on areas like responsible AI, prompting and AI fluency.

The AI skills were decided in partnership between the People team and technologists within PwC in order to understand “the skills that are critical as we’re building out new ways of doing things in the age of AI”.

While all 30 skills are important, there’s one particular human skill that Seals-Coffield pulled out during the UNLEASH interview: Agility.

She continues: “In my mind, we are hiring people today for jobs that may not yet exist. We need to make sure that they have the portfolio of skills necessary to be where we most need them, and that may look different from the actual jobs they’re applying for today”.

Therefore, agility is key; “being able to pivot, being able to learn quickly, being able to fail quickly”.

Beyond skills, and towards re-envisioning learning at PwC

Once the People team at PwC had identified these 30 skills, they took the work a step further to “re-envision our entire learning curriculum from the time that people join us until the time that they leave us”.

They started with a couple of questions: “How do we unpack our learning and make sure that we are incorporating AI and human skills along that learning journey at the right time in the right way?”

“Where do we intentionally build AI and human learning experiences?”, “how do you bring this to life everyday?” and “how do you create the time and space for our people to investment in themselves and learn?”

The answer to these questions at PwC is a firm-wide apprenticeship culture.

Last summer, the People team “intentionally relaunched” this approach, telling employees that “we expect them to be teachers and learners every single day”.

This comes to life in “the way we show up” – “we’ve asked our leaders, who are closest to our people, to reinforce these messages”, by asking their people questions like  “what have you taught today? What have you learned this week?”

PwC also has “created opportunities for people to come together to learn and share” with one another.

For example, the consulting firm has AI + Human Skills Immersion sessions for new employees full of hackathons and applied client scenarios that aim to build AI fluency and readiness.

Since October 2025, more than 3,000 new associates in the US and Mexico have participated in these immersion sessions – 91% report gains in AI knowledge and skills, with 93% applying those skills on the job.

PwC ensures that it highlights success stories around AI and skills to motivate people – “I recognize that folks are spending time – sometimes their own nights and weekends – to invest in their own upskilling”, and this is resulting in new, innovative ways of working.

“We want to highlight and celebrate those [success stories] because that encourages people to keep going, to stay the course”, adds Seals-Coffield.

Yolanda Seals-Coffield, Chief People & Inclusion Officer, PwC US.

Her advice to her CHRO peers who are struggling to move the needle on skills is to get back to basics and foundations by “looking at the infrastructure they have in place”.

Seals-Coffield recommends that organizations ask themselves these questions:

“Do you have a skills-first infrastructure? Are you looking at your job architecture and aligning it to certain skills?

“Are you looking across all the learnings that you offer and aligning those?

“Are you implementing a skills intelligence platform that will help bring external market data inside the organization?

“What is the common language that organizations can create when they think about the skills their people need?”

As part of its mission to create a “skills-first mindset”, PwC has recently launched two new programs: a skills intelligence platform and an intelligent learning platform.

The skills intelligence platform identifies skills gaps in people’s roles, and helps them take meaningful action, while the intelligent learning tool is an AI coach that makes personalized learning recommendations and provides real-time learning support to employees.

Once organizations have done the foundational work, Seals-Coffield calls on organizations to create a roadmap to move towards a situation where “AI and human skills just become a critical part of your People ecosystem”.

“That’s the approach that we’re taking, and are continuing to learn as we” progress.

Why the ‘Learning Collective’ is the future of upskilling at PwC

UNLEASH was keen to find out what is top of PwC and Seals-Coffield’s to-do list as the firm continues on its skills journey.

“Our goal is to be a premier developer of talent,” Seals-Coffield tells UNLEASH.

Seals-Coffield is clear that PwC has had huge success here, however, it’s imperative to continue to “push ourselves, and push our people on this learning continuum”, because “I don’t think we’ve fully unlocked the potential of AI”.

In fact, hot of the press, this week PwC announced a new, first-of-its-kind workforce development model called the Learning Collective.

Seals-Coffield shares: “The Learning Collective builds on what we were already doing well and brings it all together into one ecosystem for accelerated growth.

“Instead of learning happening in pockets or programs, it’s embedded into the work itself so our people can learn at scale, grow at speed, and act with impact as roles continue to evolve.”

Importantly, this model is not “about adding more on top of already full plates, but it rethinks how learning happens altogether”; “it doesn’t add time, it adds value”.

Learning happens everywhere – “people build skills as they work” by integrating learning into “client work, team interactions, and real-world problem solving”.

PwC shared an example of the Learning Collective in action. The consulting giant is rolling out Associate Discovery, an immersive development experience with applied client scenarios, simulations and certifications that aim to prepare workers to rapidly build fluency in the skills, mindsets and tools PwC clients need.

Previously, associate training was more formalized; the goal of the Learning Collective and Associate Discovery is to help build skills in real time.

Seals-Coffield adds that this approach is “what makes learning sustainable”; “people stay practical, relevant, and built to grow with our people as their roles evolve”.

PwC’s plan to measure the success of the Learning Collective is through “a combination of data, business impact, and actual changes in how work gets done”.

Stay tuned to see if this approach reaps the rewards for PwC – could you emulate it in your business?

Skills are top of the agenda at UNLEASH America 2026 – we’ve got senior HR leaders from Marriott, Phillips 66, New York Life, Microsoft and GE HealthCare sharing their skills journeys. It’s not too late to grab a pass, and join us in Las Vegas, March 17-19.