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Most companies have bought the AI. Very few have changed the job.

Gartner surveyed 2,002 CIOs and tech executives and published the results this week. Only 13 percent say their company has seen significant value from AI. Only 4 percent have a plan to redesign roles for a workforce that is part human and part agent. The ones who do are 2.4 times more likely to be the leaders. The tool arrives, the org chart stays exactly where it was, and then everyone wonders where the savings went.

Now look at Poland, one of the markets I get asked about most. Statistics Poland reported that enterprise wages rose 5.9 percent in September while paid employment fell 0.8 percent. Employers are paying more per person and hiring fewer people. Waiting is not a cost strategy.

Put the two together and the question most plans start with, "where is it cheaper to hire?", is the wrong first question. A seat that costs more, filled by someone whose work nobody has redesigned around the new tools, is not a bargain in any country.

The better order is simple. First decide what the seat is for now. Then decide where it should sit. Then decide who runs it.

Redesign the seat, then choose the map.

This Week's Number: 4% : the share of CIOs with an explicit plan to redesign roles for a human-and-agent workforce (Gartner, 2,002 CIOs and tech executives, fieldwork May to July 2026).

1. Only 13 percent of CIOs see real value from AI, and the ones who do redesigned the work.
Gartner's 2027 CIO and Technology Executive Agenda survey, released October 19, covers 2,002 CIOs and technology executives surveyed from May to July. Only 13 percent say their enterprise has realized significant or transformational value from AI, and the odds that any single AI use case succeeds are still about one in five. Organizations with explicit plans to redesign roles for a human-agent workforce are 2.4 times more likely to be the leaders. Only 4 percent have one. Meanwhile 58 percent of CIOs report more pressure to cut costs with AI, and 51 percent expect AI to raise the total cost of their technology. Gartner also finds 40 percent expect IT headcount to grow in 2027.

Read this as an org-design story, not a technology story. The savings do not appear because the tool was installed. They appear when someone rewrites what a role is: fewer role types, broader scope, a clear owner. That is hard to do from headquarters, mid-quarter, on top of a day job. It is much easier when you are standing up a new team and can design the roles before you hire into them. An employer of record is a fine way to get people on a payroll quickly in a new country. It does not redesign a role. Someone has to own that, and it is an operating job.

2. Poland's pay is rising 5.9 percent while its headcount shrinks.
Statistics Poland's September release (October 20) shows the average gross wage in the enterprise sector at about PLN 9,266 a month, up 5.9 percent on a year earlier, while average paid employment was down 0.8 percent. August had the same shape: wages up 5.6 percent, employment down 0.8 percent.

Poland is still one of the best places in Europe to build a concentrated team. It is also a market where the price of a seat is moving faster than the number of seats. Both are true. The mistake is budgeting a Polish team at last year's offer letters. At a 5.9 percent run rate, a team of twenty costs noticeably more by next autumn than the plan says. And when wages rise faster than headcount, losing a good person gets more expensive, so who runs the team matters more than the sticker price on day one.

3. The Philippines is turning into a capability-center market.
A white paper from Colliers, IBPAP and ZMG Ward Howell, reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on September 3, counts roughly 200 global capability centers in the Philippines employing about 270,000 professionals, heading to around 289,000 this year, a rise of about 7 percent. Colliers' view is that the country has moved beyond being mainly a cost-efficient services destination. ML and AI engineers are the hardest roles to fill, with the lowest ratio of candidates to open jobs.

A GCC is a captive center, and captives make sense at hundreds of seats. Most of my readers are not at hundreds. They need ten to sixty people in one country, working as one team, with the process and the know-how staying in the company. That is the same prize as a captive at a fraction of the size. So the question is not whether to build a center. It is whether you need a 500-seat one. Build the 30-seat version, run it properly, and own it when you are ready.

AI is everywhere. Redesigned jobs are almost nowhere.

Caption: Four findings from the same Gartner survey of 2,002 CIOs and technology executives, fieldwork May to July 2026, published October 19. Each bar is the share of respondents who said yes.

Read the bars from the top. Four in ten CIOs expect to hire more in 2027, about three in ten have rules for stopping a bad AI pilot, one in eight sees real value, and one in twenty-five has a plan to redesign the roles. That last bar is the one that decides the other three. Gartner's own finding is that leaders are 2.4 times more likely to have it. Source: Gartner. If you are about to build a team, you have a rare chance to write the roles first and hire into them second.

Try this before your next planning meeting. Pick one role on the plan for the next team you build. Not a department, one role. Write down what it does today, what it does if the tools actually work, and who will own the new version six months from now. Most plans design the location and skip the job.

If you want a second pair of eyes on it, I am happy to go through your role with you. Thirty minutes, your countries, no slides from me. No pitch. Just insight from someone who has been there.

Book a strategy session and bring your one role.

📖 New here? My book, Winning the Global Talent War, is the full playbook behind this newsletter.