... and what they tell us about the next era of global change

In brief

• On paper, people are thriving. In real life, they’re running on empty. Quality-of-life indicators are at record highs, but people report feeling worse mentally and physically than a few years ago. Yet the pursuit of stability resembles a perpetual sprint: Everyone is running harder just to stay where they are.
• Progress exists, but so does its shadow. For the lucky, the past five years delivered opportunity. For many others, it delivered overdrafts, anxiety, and precarity. Averages have become polite fictions, masking an increasingly bifurcated world.
• People are retreating to whatever they can actually control. Energy is flowing toward financial independence, close relationships, health routines, and personal belief systems — and away from commitments that feel open-ended or impossible to influence.
• Values remain lofty, but capacity to act on them has collapsed. Climate action and consumer activism remain stated priorities, but limited time, money, and bandwidth increasingly filter what people actually do. Some now question whether individual actions can solve systemic problems at all.
• Trust has narrowed from institutions to smaller, self-selected circles. “People like me” has become the default reference point. Governments, media outlets, and platforms that once expected deference now compete for basic credibility against peers and first-hand experience.
• Today’s humans are not 2020 humans. They are better equipped, more selective, and markedly more strained. Organizations that design for higher expectations, narrower trust, and limited bandwidth — while genuinely acting with purpose — will earn lasting engagement. Those that don’t will find themselves shouting into an increasingly empty room.

What the voices say

Quality of life is higher than ever, but people are more dissatisfied

In 1971, psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell described the “hedonic treadmill”: As conditions improve, expectations rise to match, leaving satisfaction perpetually out of reach. The pattern they described has never been more visible — or more exhausting.

By most formal measures, life has improved globally. The share of people who say they’re “thriving” jumped to 33% in 2024, while those suffering fell to a record-low 7%. The global Human Development Index, which measures quality of life through health, education, and income, hit a new peak in 2023. People are living longer, learning more, and earning better.

And yet people want more on every front. The importance placed on values has intensified across the board. Specifically, money has increased in importance by 30%, achievement and success by 26%, and learning and growth by 24%. Every value we track has risen in magnitude — demonstrating that even as life improves, expectations rise faster. For organizations trying to engage consumers, employees, or citizens, this creates a moving target. Better is never quite good enough.

The pressure to achieve and get ahead of financial uncertainty is intensifying...

Relative change in % respondents who agree, 2022 and 2025

83%

“I feel pressure to make money to feel successful/satisfied”

56%

“I am willing to put everything I have into my career goals”

54%

“I want to live in alignment with the FIRE movement”

25%

“My job is a defining part of my identity”

33%

“I want to own my own business”

31%

“I aspire to possess a lot of money”

38%

“I want my professional accomplishments to make a lasting impact on the world”

...yet contentment hasn’t followed achievement

23%

“I don’t want to be defined by my work”

13%

“I would rather feel fulfilled and happy in my career than make a lot of money”

Question: “Which of the following statements, if any, do you agree with?”

Source: Oliver Wyman surveys, 4 countries, June 2022 (N=2,439) September 2025 (N=3,504)

People are working harder, spending more, and feeling worse. Nowhere is the disconnect between objective conditions and subjective experience sharper than in how people spend.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Consumer Confidence Index has sat below its long-term average since 2020, yet spending in 2024 outpaced 2019. That’s true even among households that insist they feel worse off. In the United States, average annual consumer expenditures climbed 25% above pre-pandemic levels, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. People are anxious but are spending more.

The pressure to get ahead is intensifying. Desire to earn money has nearly doubled since 2022. Interest in the financial independence, retire early (FIRE) movement has jumped from 24% to 37%. Long‑term investing now touches eight in 10 adults. The share willing to “put everything they have” into career goals rose from 18% to 28%.

But ambition has not translated into contentment. More people say they do not want to be defined by their job, and more want work that feels meaningful. Workers want money — and meaning, too.

The same paradox appears in wellness. Commitment to long-term health and fitness has risen 20% since 2022. Yet self-reported mental health declined 11%, and physical health fell 8%. The proliferation of wellness trackers is partly to blame. Sleep scores, recovery metrics, and biometric dashboards may have created a culture where people feel fine until their devices tell them otherwise.

People don’t need more reminders of their shortcomings. They may need permission to feel “good enough.”

Financial literacy and self-reliance offer stability amid uncertainty

As confidence in external systems declines, people are doubling down on what they can build, and improve, themselves. On the practical side, financial literacy is now the top skill people wish they had learned earlier — the fastest-rising gap since 2022. Many also wish they had learned the building blocks of self‑reliance: relationship building, career management, tracking life goals. Meanwhile, skills tied to civic or collective life — political knowledge, social cause engagement — have stagnated or declined.

The search for meaning is also becoming more pronounced. Belief in a god is rising (from 36% to 47%), as is scientific belief in evolution (from 39% to 44%). Positive affirmations and belief in manifestation have doubled or more.

Rather than embracing single worldviews, people are assembling individualized “belief stacks” — drawing from tradition, science, introspection, and ritual simultaneously — to anchor themselves in a world that feels unmoored. Think of it as spiritual diversification.

This also shows up in how people spend their time. Religious or spiritual practice has surged 32%, exercising 12%, and time with family and friends 7%. Meanwhile, passive leisure — endless scrolling, idle relaxation — has dropped between 10% and 17%. People are actively substituting drift with structure and connection. Identity, energy, and attention are all being reorganized around what feels controllable.

This inward turn shapes behavior, too. The share of people who say they care about social, environmental, or political issues has risen sharply — from 45% in 2021 to 60% in 2025. Among those who care, two-thirds say their concern predates the pandemic. But a notable minority — particularly among Gen Z — became engaged only in the past five years, underscoring how formative this period has been for the generation.

Yet even as caring rises, follow‑through has eroded. The share of people who say their strong views on global, political, or economic issues don’t affect their consumer choices has grown from 32% to 38% since 2022. This suggests the gap between conviction and capacity is growing.

Financial constraints and fatigue are creating a widening gap between what we care about and how we act. Boycotts are fading: The share of people willing to boycott a business indefinitely has dropped by a third since 2022, to 29%. The impulse hasn’t disappeared, but its expression has become more bounded — shaped by what people feel they can realistically sustain.

Climate action, for example, increasingly runs through the household budget. People gravitate toward changes that also ease personal costs — like reducing energy usage (+14%). By contrast, lifestyle shifts with no direct financial benefit — changing diet (-23%), minimizing waste (-11%), and changing daily travel habits (-16%) — are slipping.

But constraints tell only half the story. The deeper force is a growing sense that individual action may not matter, or that the problems are too large to move. When people pour energy into causes yet see problems worsen, the impulse is to quietly disengage. It turns out there is a limit to how long you can ask people to save the planet one reusable straw at a time. For retailers, employers, and policymakers, the implication is clear: Values-based appeals must acknowledge both practical limits and emotional exhaustion.

Trust declines in government and media as people rely more on their own communities

Over the past few years, the landscape of trust has changed dramatically. Trust in “people like you” rose from 65% to 80% — the highest increase and a notable exception. Trust in preferred brands and employers also edged up, suggesting a “proximity trust” effect: people lean toward sources they can repeatedly test. Trust in mainstream news held flat while national government dropped from 40% to 33% and social media fell from 29% to 25%.

Perhaps the information environment helps explain this shift. Agreement that misinformation is a problem rose from 80% to 83% between 2022 and 2025, and the share of people who worry they might fall for fake news jumped from 61% to 71%. When people doubt not only institutions but their ability to discern truth, they retreat toward sources they can verify firsthand and pull away from those they cannot.

The result is a widening gulf between trust in people we know and trust in institutions we don’t. People trust their peers more than twice as much as they trust national government — and three times as much as social media. People now trust what sits across the table, not what issues statements from afar.

Organizations now face a world in which legitimacy cannot be inherited and credibility cannot be asserted. It must be earned through proximity, understanding, and proof. Institutions that succeed will feel less like institutions and more like trusted networks.

Governments and businesses that build trust and meaning with actionable proof can capture people’s yearning for meaning and progress. The picture that emerges from five years of data is one of recalibration. People are investing in their own foundations — financial, relational, existential — while pulling back from commitments that feel unmanageable. They trust what they can verify and doubt what they cannot.

For organizations, the implications are broad. Employees want the pay and perks — and security and meaning, too. Consumer brands cannot assume values translate into spending; purpose must be made easier, not louder. Policymakers face a trust deficit that messaging alone cannot repair.

Legitimacy now depends on evidence that they understand their audience and provide an honest accounting of any tradeoffs they must make. And any institution that relies on inherited authority — whether a government, a media organization, or a legacy brand — will need to rebuild credibility from the ground up, through networks, not broadcasts.

In short: Show, don’t tell. Prove, don’t preach. And recognize that the days of demanding deference are over. Trust must be earned, meaning must be demonstrated, and attention must be deserved. The organizations that grasp this will thrive. Those that do not will find themselves speaking to an audience that has already left the room.

In brief

• Healthcare’s K-shaped divide is widening into two separate worlds. High-income consumers invest in customized prevention and longevity. At the lower end, illness and debt pile up. The middle is caught in between — too affluent for safety nets, too stretched to get ahead.
• The second opinion is no longer a doctor; it’s an algorithm. Consumers now triangulate between clinicians, AI tools, and peers on social media. Those who find traditional care confusing are far more likely to turn to AI.
• People are doing more for their health but feeling worse. Wellness rituals are booming, sleep and step counts are logged obsessively, and gym attendance resembles a revival. Yet mental and physical well-being sentiment has fallen below peak-COVID levels, and the gap between how long people live and how long they live in good health continues to widen.
• Incrementalism is out; interventions are in. Demand is soaring for cosmetic procedures, psychedelics, and other treatments. Consumers aren’t giving up — they may be looking for treatments that change trajectories, not just manage symptoms.
• Community is becoming healthcare’s most undervalued infrastructure. Health behaviors stick when they’re embedded in families, friend groups, workplaces, and digital communities. Trust is migrating from institutions to peers. In a fragmented world, health has become one of the few languages that still brings people together.
• The longevity economy is the next growth frontier. Investment is pivoting from wellness baubles to infrastructure that delivers measurable health outcomes. The winners will help people step off the treadmill of endless optimization and into tangible, comprehensible improvements in long-term health.

What the voices say

Healthcare providers must serve distinct markets amid rising health and wealth inequality

Two divergent healthcare economies are running in parallel. At the top of the K, affluent households buy their way into resilience: preventative care, flexible work, better food, safer homes, and the emerging paraphernalia of longevity culture. Over time, these compound into a “longevity stack” of data, therapies, and well-being.

At the bottom, poorer households live a mirror image: more chronic illness, more missed work, and higher exposure to crisis care. Investments that might interrupt the cycle — better nutrition, time off, early interventions — are out of reach. In the middle sits a swelling population for whom financial safety nets are disappearing faster than their health is improving.

The divergence is not theoretical. Low-income respondents are now 27% more likely than high‑income cohorts to report being in treatment, a full reversal from 2021. Therapy, meanwhile, remains roughly twice as common among the affluent. Optimism follows the same curve. High-income individuals are 29% more likely to expect their well‑being to improve, while low-income cohorts expect deterioration across finances, health, and relationships.

The implication is clear: Firms cannot target the “average” consumer because the average is a statistical ghost. Corporate strategy begins with deciding where to play on the K-curve and then designing accordingly.

As people live longer but often sicker lives, more of the cost burden falls on households rather than systems, especially in markets like the US. That creates a clear opportunity for financial services and wealth managers to help people — particularly those in the “middle” who feel stable today — plan, save, and protect themselves against the rising costs of later life with new products.

The opportunity for healthcare, retail, finance, and tech lies in market structure and clarity. A strategy built around a comfortable “middle” risks mispricing demand, concentrating risk on fragile customers, and colliding with regulatory and reputational pressure as the gap becomes visible. The smarter move is to be explicit about where your business sits on the K while recognizing that the middle is not a stable resting place but a population at risk of sliding down.

Serving the top may mean high-touch, human-led longevity offerings — think concierge medicine meets performance optimization. Serving the bottom may require lower-cost automated care models that make reliable basic care available at scale. Serving the middle means helping people act before they fall, whether through preventive care pathways, financial planning tools that account for longer and potentially sicker lives, or hybrid models that bridge the gap. Success should be measured by reducing the practical barriers customers face within whichever segment you serve, not by maximizing volume or pretending the gap does not exist.

Since 2021, the burden of illness is concentrating at the bottom, particularly for mental illness

% of respondents who report being in treatment, 2021 and 2025

Question: “Are you currently being treated for a mental illness (i.e., depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc.), physical injury, chronic health condition, addiction, or terminal illness?”

Source: Oliver Wyman surveys, 4 countries, October 2021 (low income: N=978, high income: N=548); September 2025 (low income: N=536, high income: N=786)

Frustrated by the healthcare system, many consumers are turning to AI for guidance

The cultural contract between patients and healthcare systems has frayed. More than three in five people globally now say their health system is overstretched, and ratings of care quality have fallen 10 points since 2021, to 43%. When asked which sectors most need better-tailored products and services, healthcare sits at the top at 53% — above finance, fashion, and even technology. The diagnosis is clear: The system is ailing.

Into this vacuum steps AI. Sixty‑five percent of respondents say they have used AI for healthcare, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer uses of the technology. About half have already turned to AI for everyday health questions (55%) and specific conditions (47%), and more than a third for urgent health needs.

The second opinion is now an always-on companion — one that never sighs at your questions or makes you wait three weeks for an appointment.

The shift is especially pronounced among those who find traditional care confusing. In the US, that group is 1.6 times more likely to rely on AI, with about 80% already doing so. AI-enabled patients are 25% less likely to cite doctors as a source of information, and two to five times more likely to turn to blogs and influencers.

The result is a healthcare journey that resembles checking the weather: People triangulate across multiple sources, none authoritative enough on its own.

Healthcare emerges as AI’s breakout use case

2025 compared with 2023

55%

27% relative change

Have used AI for daily health questions (e.g., diagnosing minor conditions)

47%

34%

Have used AI for specialized conditions (e.g., mental health, dermatology)

37%

24%

Have sought AI’s guidance on urgent health situations and serious ailments

Question: “For which of the following purposes have you already interacted with AI?”

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum surveys, 12 countries, August 2023 (N=10,831) and September 2025 (N=8,710)

This is not simply a matter of convenience. Years of staff shortages, long waits, and expectations shaped by on‑demand digital services have reset expectations. Pandora’s medical bag is open. Healthcare systems now need to design for patients who are both proactive and deferential, often simultaneously.

Businesses that win customers will treat them like partners rather than problems. They should build products that sit atop AI models and flag what is safe, dubious, or simply nonsense. They should translate online diagnosis searches into clear, coherent next steps. They should train clinicians to refine patient hypotheses rather than swat them away. Done well, this reduces complaints, boosts conversations, and creates loyalty that outlasts the next algorithm update.

Despite more wellness routines, consumers report declining mental and physical health

Once an industry, wellness has become a lifestyle — if not a full-time job. The share of people who practice at least four wellness activities has risen from 22% to 30% since 2021, while the “I do nothing” crowd has shrunk from 15% to 4%. Health quantification through digital monitoring has nearly doubled to 21%. Proactive health monitoring has risen from 20% to 34%. Step counts, sleep scores, heart-rate variability — everything is monitored, logged, and, quite often, fretted over.

More than half of people now work out at home or in a gym, up 27% since 2021. And the data deluge has not scared them off: Willingness to trade health data for personalized insights has increased from 51% to 61%, even as three-quarters of people express fears about data misuse. Privacy anxiety is losing ground to the promise of a better sleep score.

Yet despite all of this monitoring and maintenance, we feel worse. Well-being sentiment has slipped four points since 2021 and now sits below peak-COVID levels. The share of people who describe themselves as mentally healthy peaked at 66% in early 2022 and has since fallen to 59%. Physical-health confidence has dropped from 62% to 56%.

This is not just collective grumpiness. The global gap between lifespan and health span — the years spent in good health — widened from about 8.5 to 9.6 years between 2000 and 2019, according to the World Health Organization. In the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway, this gap already hovers at 11 to 12 years, with the US at 12.4. This is closely associated with the rising burden of noncommunicable disease. We are living longer, yes. But we are spending more of those extra years feeling unwell.

Small fixes are losing their charm, so consumers are reaching for bigger levers. Interest in cosmetic procedures has climbed from 13% to 22%. Acceptance of psychedelics has surged to 42%, up 30% since 2021.

Healthcare’s longevity economy will define new business growth opportunities. After pandemic 44 booms in health tech and alternative care, funding is shifting toward the less-glamorous plumbing of health: provider operations, infrastructure, and systems that can turn scattered activity into integrated, outcome-focused care. The goal is to help clinicians, communities, and workplaces act on real-world health patterns rather than celebrate app engagement metrics that signify little.

The winners will design for long-term health, not short-term engagement. That could mean health plans that adjust premiums based on biomarker trends; retailers that turn loyalty programs into health-span programs; employer benefits that track flare-ups rather than logins; or digital tools that simplify a person’s well-being toolkit instead of multiplying it. Success will accrue to those that help people step off the treadmill of constant effort and actually feel better.

Community-building is an underused lever for the healthcare industry

Community is becoming one of healthcare’s most undervalued pieces of infrastructure — perhaps because it feels too soft to quantify or too difficult to monetize. Yet the evidence is mounting. Gym attendance, diet shifts, screening uptake, and adherence to long-term medication all improve when there is a social element. Digital tools have now made these communities more visible and scalable. People build micro-communities around sleep scores, step streaks, meal plans, or specific conditions — and those spaces can carry as much weight as government health initiatives or corporate wellness programs. Sometimes more.

The share of respondents who say they maintain health and fitness routines more consistently as part of a community has risen from 52% to 61% since 2021. Those who encourage family and friends to be healthier have climbed from 18% to 33%. Gym and studio use is up from 21% to 36%, while home workouts have stayed broadly flat (34% to 38%). This suggests people want health to feel shared, not solitary. Roughly one in five respondents now rely on community for their own adherence and act as evangelists for others. This group has more than doubled in four years, to 22%.

Community is also where trust has migrated. People now turn to friends and family (40%) more than twice as often as government sources (17%). Social media is used twice as often as official channels (34% versus 17%).

The rise of the community champion

2025 compared with 2021

22%

105% relative change

are community champions, who report maintaining health routines within a community and encouraging others toward healthier habits

Community champions prove moving with others is a game changer

17%

More likely to report being physically healthy (65% versus 56%)

81%

More likely to cite that making decisions toward longevity is a priority (35% versus 20%)

36%

More likely to cite that they’ll continue to care about their health and fitness long term (58% versus 42%)

6%

More likely to report being mentally healthy (64% versus 61%)

Over the next 12 months, community champions are more likely to expect improvement in:

46%

Overall well-being

(53% versus 36%)

45%

Spiritual wellness

(49% versus 34%)

42%

Physical health

(52% versus 37%)

41%

Emotional well-being

(49% versus 35%)

Note: Percentages in parentheses indicate community champions versus the general population

Question: “How do you expect each of these will change over the next 12 months?”

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum surveys, 4 countries, November 2021 (community champions: N=265, general population: N=2,417), September 2025 (community champions: N=771, general population: N=3,504). Community champion 2025 profile: 13 countries, September 2025 (community champions: N=1,997, general population: N=10,663)

In a post-pandemic world marked by skepticism and fatigue, health has become one of the few languages that still bring people together — and community is where that language is spoken fluently.

For healthcare, consumer goods, technology, and public sector leaders, community is a strategic lever hiding in plain sight. Ignore it and you inherit higher acquisition costs, weaker adherence, and more volatility when a narrative turns against you — and it will. Use it wisely and you can design offerings that are easier to adopt together than alone, build community features that are transparent, give people tools to bring their own circles along, and measure success at the level of anonymized clusters rather than isolated individuals.

In a world where information is cheap and trust is scarce, the ability to convene and protect trusted health communities may become one of the most defensible assets any brand can build — and one of the few that reduce costs while deepening impact. Community is not a marketing add-on. It is becoming the infrastructure itself.

In brief

• The investing ladder is losing its first rung. Since 2021, lower-income households have been deserting the stock market while their wealthier neighbors pile in. With valuations looking frothy, a sharp correction risks becoming a trapdoor for newcomers unless firms build better safeguards.
• AI has made the unprofitable suddenly profitable. For decades, financial firms focused on wealthier clients who could afford the services they offered. AI has changed the math, slashing the cost to serve and turning a market worth ignoring into one worth chasing.
• “I can beat my adviser” really means “with AI.” Most middle and high earners now claim they can outperform professional advisers. Yet AI use for investing has surged the past two years. People haven’t rejected expert help — they’re just outsourcing it to machines.
• Financial anxiety is everywhere, and is getting worse. Across generations, pressure to “make money to feel successful” has nearly doubled since 2022. Boomers fear running out of time; Gen Z fears the old script was a fairy tale.
• Understanding is the new value proposition. Investors wish they’d learned money skills earlier. They also say AI understands them better than human advisers do. Institutions slow to adapt may find their “trusted relationships” being quietly rerouted to apps.

What the voices say

Financial confidence and investment diverge by income

The mood has brightened on paper: Consumer confidence globally has climbed nearly three-quarters since 2022. But peel back the averages and a messier picture emerges. People at the top of the income ladder, buoyed by roaring markets and less battered by inflation, feel the world improving. Those at the bottom grow gloomier by the quarter. This isn’t a rising tide lifting all boats. It’s a bifurcated recovery where income largely determines whether a person is climbing or sinking.

Price shocks have split consumers into divergent camps. When inflation peaked in early 2023, nearly half of lower-income households radically changed their spending, compared with just a third of high earners.

At the same time, 70% of wealthier respondents still felt comfortable making major purchases over $1,000. Only 37% of low-income consumers say the same. For them, even basic consumption requires careful triage.

The investing ladder is losing its first rung. As lower-income households pulled back on spending and ran down their savings, their stock market participation collapsed from 38% in 2021 to 28% in 2025. Over that same time, high-income participation rose from 66% to 71%. What was once a shared path to long-term security now comes with an express lane for those who can afford the toll.

The timing could hardly be worse. Between 2022 and 2025, the S&P 500 surged nearly 45%, turning a $10,000 investment into nearly $14,500 — gains many poorer households missed entirely. Among those still in the market, resolve is hardening: 91% now say they’re in for the long haul, up from 80% in 2021. But that first rung — the entry point where savers either climb aboard or fall away — is splintering. Participation gaps today will become wealth gaps tomorrow.

Firms must navigate a splintering market. On the current arc, markets tilt further toward a well-heeled, trusting elite at the top and away from a shrinking, cash-strapped base.

A narrower investor pool means future revenue will come from fewer, already over-courted clients, with market swings tied even tighter to the whims of the wealthy. Yet firms can’t ignore the 28% of lower-income consumers who still invested while their peers fled. These are tomorrow’s core customers — if they can stay on the ladder. With valuations stretched, a sharp correction could eject new investors for years unless firms build safeguards against panic selling.

AI democratizes financial advice for underserved consumers

The wealth divide is not inevitable. In fact, it’s economically ripe for disruption. For decades, good financial guidance was reserved for the rich — not because lower-income people were uninterested, but because it didn’t pay. Wealth managers provided white-glove service with teams of experts, demanded hefty minimums, and charged fees on those balances. Retail banks funneled resources toward large accounts. The math pushed financial institutions upmarket, not down.

AI is rewriting the calculus for financial advisers. Robo-advisers charge a fraction of traditional fees. Chatbots and AI assistants handle routine queries at scale, freeing human advisers for thornier cases. Personalization that once required expensive facetime can now be delivered algorithmically. What was once a high-touch, high-cost service is becoming a mass-market product. Lower-income consumers have suddenly become viable — and potentially attractive.

“Self-directed” now means “self-directed with AI.” Two-thirds of middle- and high-income investors now say they can beat financial advisers on their own. Adviser usage hasn’t collapsed — but the meaning of “on my own” has changed. In two years, the share of people using AI for investing has jumped by nearly a third, to 44%. Those confident they can outperform advisers are nearly 50% likelier to use AI for investing and financial planning. People haven’t rejected guidance. They simply want it from people and machines.

AI changes what advice feels like for the better. Investors are roughly 25% likelier to say AI makes them feel more supported and understood than a human adviser does. They’re nearly four times likelier to say AI helps align their personal values with a financial plan, and over four times likelier to say it brings deeper meaning to managing money. What emerges is people seeking something traditional advice often fails to deliver: a judgment-free space to learn at their own pace and test scenarios without embarrassment. AI offers coaching, not prescription.

Yet enthusiasm has its limits. Even as AI use has climbed, interest in letting AI invest automatically has fallen from 41% to 32%. Most see the technology as co-pilot, not autopilot.

Younger generations are primed for digital-first finance. Gen Z and millennials, raised in the feedback loops of social media, are particularly comfortable with digital-first money management. Fifty-five percent of Gen Z and 44% of millennials cite social media as the top reason they’re more engaged in investing. For them, AI-powered tools are simply extensions of how they already navigate life.

That openness shows in their platform choices. In 2021, traditional brokerages attracted 44% of investors while crypto exchanges claimed just 28%. By 2025, the gap has nearly vanished: Crypto exchanges stand at 36%, just behind traditional brokerages at 37%. People aren’t just diversifying. They are sampling — and AI is the sommelier.

Firms must choose their target market. For traditional wealth managers, AI poses a strategic choice: Use it to reduce costs in serving existing clients — a defensive play protecting margins — or treat it as a way to make the market’s lower end economically attractive for the first time. Firms building best-in-class AI, combining public knowledge with curated internal research and chief investment officer insights, will be positioned to chase segments previously not worth the bother.

Three models are emerging for firms that get this right. Orchestrators help people see their full financial lives — bank accounts, debts, pensions, and investments — together in a single, clear view. Specialists do one job exceptionally well and plug into whatever else customers use, such as tools optimizing idle cash across accounts where the gap between 0% and 2% deposit rates compounds meaningfully over time. Companions provide emotional reassurance through the journey, not just cold analysis. The most valuable businesses will make it easier to combine investment vehicles, coordinate, and course correct.

These tools and models matter beyond finance. Employers find that financial stress walks through the door with their workforce. Anxious employees are more risk-averse and fixated on short-term cash over long‑term growth. Embedding AI-powered guidance into benefits can ease that anxiety while building loyalty. Fintechs serving adjacent needs — payroll, budgeting, lending — could become the trusted starting point for financial decisions, especially for younger users who may never enter a bank branch. Even retailers and gig platforms could use AI to help customers and workers smooth irregular income in ways traditional institutions never prioritized. The technology exists to meet people where they are. The question is whether organizations will deploy it that way.

Financial independence anxiety is driving demand for guidance

Even as new tools and platforms proliferate, people across ages and incomes feel more anxious around money, not less. In 2022, 18% of people said they felt pressure to make money to feel successful. By 2025, that had climbed to 33%, with especially sharp rises among low earners and boomers nearing retirement.

Even the affluent feel the pinch. Middle- and high-income investors are likelier than before to say they got into investing or devoted more time to it because they needed extra income. Among Gen X and boomers, the share citing “another source of income” as a motive has risen by two-thirds since 2021, to 32%.

Financial independence is no longer an aspiration. It is a survival skill. Financial skills now rank as the most important capability people wish they’d built earlier, showing the largest increase of all “missing skills” in recent years. The share citing it has risen from 32% to 41% since 2022, with working boomers showing the sharpest jump, from 25% to 38%. For older workers, the worry often reflects a sense that time is running out and they need new skills to navigate an unfamiliar economy before retiring. For younger people, it looks more like conviction that the old script their elders followed — steady job, simple saving, maybe homeownership — won’t work for them.

Layered over this is a growing feeling of being misread, particularly among Gen Z. The share of this generation saying that others misunderstand how they handle money climbed to 33% in 2025 from 23% three years earlier.

Taken together, the numbers describe a specific kind of anxiety. People are putting more weight on money as a measure of success, believe they started too late, and fear they’re missing a better playbook others found earlier.

The sense of missed opportunity is itself an opportunity. These consumers may be anxious, but they’re highly engaged, not passive. That’s the hallmark of an underserved market.

For financial providers, the opportunity is to help people design a basic plan — how to build a buffer, manage debt, save — rather than just hawking products. That means simple, adjustable pathways: If this is your starting point, here are the next two sensible moves. It also means building financial skills into the value proposition so people feel they’re learning to navigate shocks, not just being sold to. A good adviser, human or digital, often does something deceptively simple: confirm that a client’s modest plan is not just acceptable but right, even when markets lurch or headlines scream. Confidence, not complexity, is the product.

AI has created a rare opportunity in financial history: the ability to profitably serve millions of people who were previously difficult to reach. The bottom rung of the investing ladder doesn’t have to break. It can be rebuilt broader, sturdier, and more accessible than before. Whether that happens depends less on the technology — which is here — and more on whether institutions choose to design for the entire market, rather than the comfortable top of the K.

In brief

• Personalization is more widespread and more effective — when brands get it very right. Across ages and incomes, more people tell us that today’s products meet their needs better than three years ago (33% versus 25% in 2022). The trouble is that “very right” has become the baseline expectation.
• Personal-feeling recommendations — from peers and AI — are driving product discovery. Forget traditional marketing channels. Peer reviews, micro-influencers, and everyday creators are shaping what people buy. At the same time, shopping is now the second most common use of AI, behind help with work.
• Loyalty lives on a hair trigger. More than 60% of consumers will dump a brand after a single poor experience. For high-income shoppers, that number climbs to 69%. There is no longer a warm-up act before churn.
• Personal information remains contested. Affluent older consumers are more wary of sharing their information, while younger consumers treat it as currency — readily traded for better experiences. The generational schism shows no signs of closing.
• Technology doesn’t always lead to consumer satisfaction. Middle-income Chinese consumers are heavy users of AI and digital discovery, yet are 54% less likely than others to feel brands meet their needs. Serving the right ad is not the same as serving the right need.

What the voices say

AI and social media offer consumers personalized shopping, while targeted ads face skepticism and demand for control

Compared with 2022, more consumers in 2025 said brands are genuinely meeting their needs (33% versus 25%). AI tools and social platforms have turned product search into a continuous background activity, and many people feel they are finally finding items that fit their lives rather than the other way around.

The rub for retailers? Higher satisfaction breeds higher expectations, creating a vicious cycle. Fifty-nine percent now expect brands to remember their preferences and past purchases.

Among wealthier households, that climbs to 69%. Even among low- and middle-income consumers, a majority now expects some form of tailored experience. Age, income, and personal interests are the filters that matter most.

Wanting personalized products doesn’t mean wanting personalized ads. Targeted advertising remains polarizing. Roughly 30% of middle- and higher-income consumers say they like discovering brands this way — a 30% jump since 2022 — and trust in personalized ads has crept up from 17% to 25%.

But this still leaves the majority of consumers distinctly unimpressed. “Too many ads” overall remains the top complaint about social media, cited by 45% of consumers in September 2025, virtually unchanged from 2021.

The difference is agency. Instead of passively relying on ads to deliver customized recommendations, consumers want a say in how those recommendations are made and delivered. Most consumers (69%) demand control over how much of their data is used for personalization. This desire for control spans generations even as expectations for personalization vary wildly by age.

Consumers are seizing the reins of personalization on their own, using AI and social media like prospectors panning for gold. Since 2021, researching and finding products has become social media’s fastest-growing use case, up 27% in four years.

Across generations, about 30% of people still rely on friends and family as their primary “recommendation engine,” but younger consumers have added creators, reviews, and niche communities to that circle.

AI has joined the same advisory council: 62% of consumers say they’ve used AI to find and purchase new products, making it the second most popular AI application after help with work. And before you dismiss this as just another Gen Z fad, consider that boomers’ use of AI 72 for shopping (56%) trails Gen Z by a mere nine percentage points (65%). While social media usage shows dramatic generational chasms, AI has achieved something approaching democratic appeal.

For brands, the implications are clear: The best personalization may come from tools that let consumers brief the AI themselves. Just more than half of respondents told us they’d gladly use AI to curate personalized lists of products based on preferences they provide, a 16% increase from 2023. Being “found” through AI feels better when the consumer is the one asking the questions, not merely being followed around by retargeting. Same recommendations, different power dynamic — entirely different reception.

Brands must adapt to shifting consumer priorities on quality, price, and availability amid inflation and income inequality

Once consumers find products they like, more say they’ll stick with them. The share who plan to keep buying from brands they like has climbed from 38% in 2022 to 47% in 2025. China is the exception: There, brand consistency has fallen from 39% to 32%, reflecting a hyper-competitive, promotion-driven market.

Still, macro conditions are reshuffling loyalties. Inflation, income inequality, and an explosion of choice have made loyalty more conditional everywhere. While 74% still cite quality as a brand’s most valuable attribute, affordability and availability often tip the decision at checkout. Among consumers who say they are less loyal than before, the leading explanation is newfound price sensitivity, especially among middle-income shoppers who are now hunting for deals. High-income consumers, by contrast, churn because they can: more options, more switching, and a 69% likelihood of walking away after a single bad experience.

Brands must pay attention to both trial and repeat purchase. Enticing a middle-income shopper into trying a product once is only half the job; keeping them means maintaining a clear value story over time. Winning and keeping affluent customers, meanwhile, demands flawless service, consistent quality, and swift recovery when something goes wrong. The margin for error is, in practice, zero.

The good news is that the same data and AI engines used for acquisition can also power retention. That is, if firms choose to point them at repeat purchase patterns, complaints, and signals of quiet drift, not just click-through rates.

With this in mind, we’ve identified four consumer groups that exemplify this emerging landscape. These profiles are intentionally broad, but they illuminate trends in loyalty, personalization, and networking that will reverberate through the smaller segments that brands target going forward.

Four profiles that exemplify the consumer of the future

1. The consumers who will share with you — and for you

Gen Z “community influencers” (5% of our sample, 33% of Gen Z)

Why they matter: Gen Z already commands an estimated $2.7 trillion in global spending power and is projected to reach $74 trillion in income by 2040, according to a Bank of America Institute report. Within this cohort, a distinct slice functions as micro-influencers long before anyone gives them a brand deal. They happily trade data for relevance and then broadcast their verdicts to peers.

What they want: This group leans into personalization and technology even when it means surrendering some privacy. They are more comfortable with targeted ads, more willing to share information for better experiences, and more likely to let celebrity or athlete endorsements sway them — though not necessarily to buy the same brand every time. Their real influence lies in what they post: reviews, comments, and casual recommendations inside online communities.

What it means for brands: Pleasing this group is straightforward: Give them exactly what they want. If you understand them, they’ll talk to you. Brands should use data to deliver precise, genuinely useful recommendations, not generic “people like you” noise — and then make it easy for these consumers to share their experiences. The goal is not just a sale, but an unpaid ambassador.

2. The consumers who might leave you

Affluent middle-aged switchers (3% of sample, 60% of 50- to 65-year-old high earners)

Why they matter: Affluent adults aged 50-plus already account for 42% of global consumer spending, making their satisfaction non-negotiable for any brand serving them. But this group is exacting. Three in five say one bad experience is enough to walk away. They are both a lucrative growth pool and an early-warning system for sloppy execution.

What they want: These consumers swiftly drop brands that don’t meet their needs or their standards for product quality and service. They are wary of indiscriminate data sharing but surprisingly open to AI for shopping when they control what is revealed. They blend digital and physical verification: checking official websites, reading detailed descriptions, and, where possible, seeing or trying products in person.

What it means for brands: To win this segment, brands must combine rock-solid execution with visible safeguards. AI-enabled journeys should be transparent, conservative with data, and backed by human support that can recover quickly when something goes wrong. The test is simple: Would a skeptical, well-informed customer still feel they made the right choice after a slipup?

3. The consumers who want to find you

Frequent AI users^[2] (14% of population)

[2] Daily AI usage at work, have used AI for finding and purchasing new products, and have used AI for online shopping customer service

Why they matter: This group is the vanguard of AI-enabled consumption. Their numbers have grown by 72% since 2023. They ask chatbots for personal advice; use AI to curate what they buy, watch, and visit; and are vocal about brands they like. They also tend to worry less about affordability and more about convenience and experience.

What they want: Frequent AI users want to feel like part of the conversation. It’s more important to them that brands value their opinions, and they are more inclined to discuss brands online. They like learning about brands from personalized ads and behave as if every purchase decision comes with a research assistant and personal shopper, and it has given them greater satisfaction and trust in brands than the average consumer.

What it means for brands: Brands can use this group as a test bed for new AI-driven experiences — conversational discovery, adaptive offers, co-created content — and count on them to amplify what works. As with Gen Z community influencers, the goal is not only to satisfy them, but to enlist them.

4. The consumers who still aren’t satisfied

China’s middle class

Why they matter: Middle-income Chinese consumers represent enormous spending power. Yet they’re 54% less likely to say brands meet their specific needs, despite openness to personalization and digital discovery channels. This disconnect is critical because the population is massive, representing a tremendous opportunity for brands that can navigate a distinct cultural context. With more than 400 million Chinese middle-income consumers, 47% of Chinese retail sales already happening through e-commerce (versus 16% in the US), and “instant commerce” growing more than three times faster than total e-commerce, global brands must flex to meet diverse consumer needs in a digitally enabled market.

How they’re different: This group behaves differently from their peers in other surveyed countries. They’re less inclined to keep buying from a brand once they like it and place unusually high weight on product availability and a brand’s “cool” factor. Their discovery process differs, too: They trust personalized ads at nearly double the global rate, and feel less in control of their data once it’s shared.

What it means for brands: Here, the pipes of personalization are fully installed, but the payoff is not. Heavy AI use and sophisticated social commerce have not translated into higher satisfaction. Global brands will need to go beyond “right customer, right channel” and focus on “right product, right feeling” — matching local tastes, availability expectations, and status cues, not just targeting models.

Winning the consumer of the future means offering tailored products and appealing ways to find them. The post-COVID, AI driven marketplace is crowded but far from closed. Consumers are juggling price pressures and information overload, yet they remain keen to find products that consistently work for them — and are increasingly willing to share both data and opinions that make that search easier.

The leading edge — frequent AI users and Gen Z community influencers — points to where the mainstream is heading: more comfort with sharing, more reliance on AI-enabled recommendations, and a continuing need for human-driven social proof. The older, wealthier cohort, meanwhile, shows that even AI-literate consumers want multiple modes of interaction and have zero tolerance for sloppy experiences. And China reminds us that technical sophistication is not a shortcut to genuine fit or loyalty.

The lesson: Personalization is necessary but not sufficient. To win the next generation of consumers, brands must decide which segments they truly serve, design journeys that let those customers feel in control, and deliver products that match real, local needs. AI can help people find you. Only relevance, reliability, and the occasional moment of delight will persuade them to stay.

In brief

• Fulfillment has become the workplace’s quietest crisis. It shot from eighth to second in terms of grievances in just two years — yet it barely moves the needle on quitting. The real risk isn’t that unfulfilled employees leave; it’s the masses that stay, deliver “just enough,” and drain momentum.
• Fulfilled employees inhabit a fundamentally different workplace. They are twice as likely to feel valued, see real career paths, and trust their leaders. Same org chart, same policies, but the experiences are as different as first class and coach.
• Training and development is now a top-three workplace priority. Demand has doubled since 2021, cutting across every generation. Unfortunately for employees, most offerings still focus on compliance rather than the cross-functional, data, and leadership skills people actually need.
• Skills expire faster than employers can respond. The half-life of a skill has collapsed from a decade or more to under five years. Yes, firms are hiring for skills, but development pipelines lag behind, and three-quarters of employees feel their existing capabilities are left idling.
• Gen Z has staged a great reputational turnaround. Once the poster children for disengagement, they’ve made the largest gains in satisfaction, manager relationships, and cultural fit. The side hustle generation has stopped moonlighting and started bringing its entrepreneurial restlessness in-house.
• Gen Z is also the first true AI workforce. They’re the most anxious about automation — and the most likely to act on it. They report the highest productivity gains from AI and are building automation-resistant skills at the fastest rate. Older workers worry; Gen Z upgrades.

What the voices say

Employee fulfillment is central to better engagement and retention

For all the talk about AI, automation, and agile talent models, the quiet force reshaping the workplace is more human: People want to feel fulfilled. Not indulged, not coddled — but fulfilled by their role in a company with a mission they believe in.

Work, they say, should add up to something more than a paycheck and dental plan. When that sense of meaning is missing, productivity falters just as surely as when systems crash or a strategy goes sideways.

Since 2023, lack of fulfillment has surged from a muted frustration to the second-most-cited workplace complaint behind compensation. No other sentiment has moved as far or as fast. Fewer than half of employees say they feel fulfilled at work. Leaders are rightly focused on AI as a powerful performance engine, but fulfillment is the fuel that keeps workers engaged, willing to adapt, and productive.

Curiously, this dissatisfaction hasn’t produced a stampede for the exits. Employees frequently cite lack of fulfillment, but it barely changed their stated reason for quitting between 2023 and 2025, rising only from 21% to 22%. Instead, employees were more likely to leave for career growth or for higher pay. The pattern suggests a quiet tension: Fulfillment is fading, but many employees no longer believe switching jobs will provide more satisfaction. Why jump when the landing looks just as uncertain?

There are a few reasons behind this. Many employees may be prioritizing stability or searching for meaning outside of work. Others may suspect that changing employers will merely swap one set of frustrations for another, especially in an uncertain economy shaped by technological disruptions. Some could simply be stuck, hemmed in by mortgages, caregiving duties, or inertia from years invested in a role.

For employers, the danger is not that unfulfilled employees will leave. The real risk is that they stay — grinding out uninspired work and dragging down their colleagues while contributing none of the creativity or energy that powers successful companies.

The data are stark. Fulfilled employees are more than twice as likely to believe they can build a meaningful career at their company (50% versus 24%) and to feel that their input is genuinely valued (46% versus 22%). They are twice as likely to feel they are gaining needed skills (60% versus 31%) and that their strengths are being used (48% versus 25%).

The effect extends to how they see the organization: Fulfilled workers are 67% to 91% more likely to understand the company vision, believe in its future, and trust senior leadership. Even retention reflects the divide: 69% plan to stay, compared with 56% of the broader population. Across every dimension, fulfilled employees operate in what amounts to a different workplace. Same org chart, same tools, entirely different experiences.

Workers demand training to adapt to AI-driven change in a new skills economy

A third of employees say access to training would most improve their work experience — a 98% leap since 2021 and the steepest rise of any workplace priority we track. Training has vaulted from seventh to fourth in the ranking of workplace needs, a sign that capability-building has become the closest thing modern employment has to job security.

Workers know that AI is about to reshape jobs at warp speed. In just three years, a third of the skills required for the average job have changed, according to Lightcast. For the most disrupted roles, that figure reaches three-quarters. After years of economic whiplash and technological upheaval, workers are prioritizing improving AI skills, which will set them up for long-term success. They see which skills are rising in value, and it’s often faster than formal development systems can adjust.

The appetite isn’t limited to the young or the restless. Interest in training now clusters between 27% and 34% across all age groups. Gen X enthusiasm has doubled, and boomers’ more than tripled, rising from just 8% in 2021 to 27% today. The message is clear: Everyone sees the skills economy arriving. Not everyone sees their employer arriving with it.

Employers are rebuilding around capability, but unevenly. Organizations have started to rewire how they find and match talent. Skills-based hiring has surged from 57% of companies in 2022 to 85% in 2025. Internal talent marketplaces are going mainstream: Gartner forecasts about 35% of large enterprises will have one by 2027.

But the infrastructure that develops and deploys skills hasn’t kept pace. Only a quarter of employees say they have access to learning opportunities and time to develop new skills, and access falls with age: 28% for Gen Z but just 17% for boomers. The same barriers that slow learning also prevent employers from using the talent they already have. Only 27% of employees feel their current skills are fully used — less a gap than a quiet indictment of organizational design.

The skills employees want most — cross-functional, data literacy, and leadership — are exactly where training is lacking. Cross-functional programs trail interest by 12 percentage points; leadership and management trails by nearly 10. Meanwhile, compliance, health and safety, and customer-service programs remain the staple diet: popular with legal departments and regulators, but not with workers.

For those gaining the right skills, the difference is striking. Only about a third of employees are confident they are getting the skills they need, but those that do 300,000 Voices are far more assured and engaged. Their job satisfaction has held steady between 88% to 90% since 2021, while the general population has swung between 68% and 71%. Trained employees also are nearly twice as likely to feel that their strengths are used, far more likely to enjoy their work, and report better relationships with colleagues and managers.

For leaders, the pattern is hard to miss. Workers across every generation now see training as one of the most important improvements to their work experience. At the same time, access to meaningful development remains patchy and training is skewed toward the familiar rather than the necessary. Most employees feel their existing capabilities are underutilized.

Mercer’s 2026 Global Talent Trends study shows that leaders recognize this in principle: 63% of executives agree they need to move toward skills-powered talent practices to ready their organization for the future, yet only 50% of C-suite leaders say they are investing enough today to close the skills gaps they expect to face.

The firms that pull ahead will treat skills as the backbone of how work is designed, staffed, and rewarded. They will help employees see future opportunities and chart the skills those roles demand. And they will measure managers not only on delivery but how effectively they grow and deploy their teams. Investors have already priced this in: Mercer’s 2026 Global Talent Trends study finds that 97% of investors say their view of a firm dims when its approach to agile, skills-based models falls short.

In a labor market where work tasks change faster than job descriptions — and where AI accelerates every shift — the skills-based organization is no longer an aspiration. It is the operating model for survival.

The most underestimated high performers in your workforce: Gen Z

For years, employers have eyed Gen Z with the suspicion usually reserved for cryptocurrencies and EVs: promising, perhaps, but likely to disappoint. Concerns about work ethic and professionalism became a kind of managerial folklore. Yet the numbers tell a different tale. Gen Z is quietly becoming one of the most engaged, adaptable, and strategically useful cohorts in the modern workforce. By 2034, millennials, Gen Z, and the first Gen Alphas will make up about 80% of the workforce in advanced economies, according to the World Economic Forum. The generation many employers fret about will soon become one they can’t function without.

Their rocky start was real enough. In 2021, Gen Z trailed older cohorts in nearly every measure: Only half liked their managers, barely more liked their colleagues, and enjoyment of their work lagged sharply. The reputation for disengagement reflected something real.

But what began as a slow thaw has turned into a full reversal. Nearly three in four are satisfied at work, matching millennials and exceeding Gen X and boomers. Much of this improvement stems from better relationships: Their approval of managers has soared by 31%, and approval of colleagues, culture, and compensation follow the same upward path.

Their confidence in employers has strengthened, too. Understanding of company vision among Gen Z has risen from 49% to 65%, and now exceeds that of Gen X and boomers. A cohort that started at the back of the pack now sits at parity — or ahead — on the measures that matter.

In 2022, nearly half of Gen Zers in the US and UK had a side hustle. That has fallen from 44% to 38%, marking the largest percentage point drop of any cohort. The hustle did not die, though. It just moved in-house. A generation that taught itself to build audiences, manage projects, and solve problems on the fly is now applying those instincts inside organizations. In an economy where volatility is the default, these instincts are less a quirk than an asset.

Gen Z is also adapting to AI faster than anyone else. The cohort entered the workforce just as the technology moved from concept to daily tool. They remain the most anxious about automation: 68% express concern, compared with 60% of millennials, 47% of Gen X, and 37% of boomers. But that anxiety appears to be fueling action rather than retreat.

The share of Gen Z developing automation-resistant skills rose 21% to 44% in 2025, the largest percentage point increase of any generation. Almost half of Gen Zers report that AI has changed the caliber 100 or type of work expected from them, and they are more likely than any other cohort to job-hunt in response to AI disruption. That willingness to adapt is producing results: Nearly two-thirds say AI has improved their productivity, and they are the most open to AI collaboration, with 37% saying they would prefer an AI colleague or manager over a human.

For organizations, Gen Z now sits at the crossroads of the three forces reshaping modern work: fulfillment, skills, and AI. They’ve become one of the most satisfied cohorts — applying their entrepreneurial instincts and AI skills to become more productive.

Organizations that harness this momentum will gain a cohort that is more engaged and adaptable, and more likely to stay than the stereotypes suggest. Those that cling to old stereotypes will misread one of the clearest signals in the labor market. The youngest workers are not the problem. Increasingly, they are the early warning system — and your competitive edge.

In brief

• The productivity paradox is back with a vengeance. AI makes workers faster in pilots, yet macro productivity barely budges. Most firms are stuck in the middle: too advanced for PowerPoints, too immature for profit.
• Thomas Edison didn’t release Electricity 2.0 every three months. Steam engines didn’t learn from experience. AI does both, and anyone can use it. For the first time, transformative technology mimics reasoning, absorbs feedback, and improves through deployment — at prices so low that a student can access the same frontier models as a Fortune 500 firm.
• We are the last generation to work only with humans. Software agents and robots are slipping into workstreams not as tools but as colleagues. They handle tasks, shape decisions, and increasingly act autonomously. The org chart has never felt more fictional.
• Boards feel momentum; frontline workers feel ambiguity. Strategy documents multiply while workers struggle with three basic questions: Where does AI actually touch my job? What does “good” look like? And how much trouble am I in if I get this wrong?
• The J-curve rewards investment, not patience. Productivity dips before taking off. General-purpose technologies deliver broad gains only when organizations rebuild infrastructure, scrub data, redesign workflows, and retrain people. The upswing is earned, not automatic.
• You cannot buy your way to readiness. Organizations can buy a modern tech stack, but the foundations that matter most — trust, capability, redesigned workflows, and confidence that gains will be shared — come only from repeated experimentation. And the climb won’t be evenly distributed.

What the voices say

[3] Workers who use AI daily at work and report productivity gain from it

[4] Defined as a 20%+ impact on revenue generation or cost savings

AI improves individual productivity, while organizational gains lag

AI’s early impact looks suspiciously familiar. Tasks finish faster, quality improves, entry-level workers’ productivity is soaring — and yet, in the aggregate, productivity refuses to take the hint. Economists call this the productivity J-curve, the awkward period when a general-purpose technology demands huge investment long before it delivers broad returns. Electricity went through it, and so did personal computing. In the latter, organizations made big investments in computer hardware, software, data, training, and process redesign, but the benefits appeared only later. Nobel economist Robert Solow’s famous 1980s quip — “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics” — fits uncomfortably well with AI.

Small-scale experiments already show real gains. Macro-level impact remains nearly invisible. Customer-service workers using AI assistants are more productive; software developers write faster; lower-skilled workers close performance gaps in weeks. Yet productivity growth in many advanced economies remains subdued, and most firms report little to no profit from AI spending.

AI is in the build-up phase of the productivity J-curve (illustrative)

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum analysis

Recent research has shown that junior workers tend to experience higher productivity gains from AI

+14%

Increase in average productivity for customer support agents with AI assistant compared to those without

+34%

Increase in average productivity for less experienced workers

Minimal

Productivity improvement for experienced workers

+26%

Increase in output for software developers with AI tools compared to those without

Up to

+39%

Increase in output for junior software developers (between 27% and 39%)

Up to

+13%

Increase in output for senior software developers (between 8% and 13%)

Source: Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li, and Lindsey R. Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” NBER Working Paper 31161 (2023); Zheyuan Cui and Mert Demirer et al., “The Effects of Generative AI on High-Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers,” MIT (2025)

What makes this wave different is that organizations are chasing a moving target. Utilities didn’t release a new version of electricity every quarter. AI does. According to Stanford’s 2025 AI Index report, AI performance surged 19 to 67 percentage points across key benchmarks in a year. And unlike past technologies, this one is radically accessible. A startup in Hangzhou or student in São Paulo can use the same frontier models as a Fortune 500 company. China’s DeepSeek, which matched Western benchmarks at a fraction of the computing cost, proves the point.

This explains the disconnect we see. At the top of the house, enthusiasm is high. Ninety-seven percent of executives recognize AI’s value. But on the ground, the mood is foggier. New tools are loosely bolted onto old workflows, data still live in silos, and workers struggle with the three questions that govern adoption: Where does AI actually touch their job? What does good look like in practice? And what happens if they get it wrong? That asymmetry explains why 35% of leaders believe their company has a clear AI vision — but only 5% of frontline workers agree. And almost no one reports enterprise-level return on investment.

Organizations with prepared infrastructure and workers will lead AI adoption

The J-curve is already dividing organizations into climbers and onlookers. Firms that spent the past decade with modern infrastructure, clean data, reengineered workflows, and AI-fluent workforces will hit the inflection point early. Those tangled in legacy systems, manual workarounds, and unprepared workers will find that AI adds noise faster than it adds results.

The workforce is split, too. For younger workers, asking AI to draft and summarize is as natural as opening a browser tab. Younger workers are also 1.7 times likelier to attend AI training, twice as likely to report skill gains, 2.3 times more likely to say AI improves their output, and three times likelier to claim work-life balance improvement from AI. While frequent use has surged 65% among Gen Z since 2023, 45% of boomers have stopped using AI at work altogether. For many older workers, AI’s benefits are harder to leverage.

The divergence is not just a skills issue — it’s a loyalty issue. Heavy AI users do not wait for employers to catch up. They leave. Workers using AI at least three times weekly are three times likelier to be job-hunting. Even within Gen Z, heavy AI users are nearly twice as likely to be searching. This creates a brutal dynamic.

Climbers and onlookers have diverging paths on the J-curve (Illustrative)

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum analysis

Every month a company dithers increases the odds that the people who could help it climb the J-curve will climb it elsewhere.

The workforce split is also organizational. Software-native companies are sprinting ahead — rapid iteration, cheap experiments, compounding learning. Physically anchored industries such as hospitality, healthcare, and logistics harbor a dangerous illusion: that because they automate later, they can prepare later. They cannot. Integrating AI into a warehouse or hospital requires not just code but robotics, safety protocols, workflow redesign, and infrastructure upgrades. Firms delaying today will discover that when automation finally becomes affordable, they lack both the systems and the workforce ready to use it.

Leaders must decide how humans, agents, and robots work together

Steam engines had no judgment; the early internet didn’t learn from every click. AI does both. For the first time, the core technology in a transformation wave is an adaptive system that can mimic reasoning, absorb feedback, and continuously update. That changes what “workforce” means. Leaders aren’t designing for humans plus tools; they’re designing for humans, software agents, and robots that share tasks, decisions, and sometimes accountability. As Salesforce’s Marc Benioff put it, “We are the last generation to manage only humans.”

Inside organizations, workers already manage AI the same way they manage interns. They set context, define good output, critique drafts, and push for better versions. Many advanced users practice a form of informal “AI management” — helping a system perform without ever fully controlling it.

Not everyone likes the “intelligent coworker” framing. Linguist Emily M. Bender warns that large language models are sophisticated pattern matchers, not reasoners, and can reproduce bias at scale.

Nobel physicist Geoffrey Hinton, who pioneered the neural networks that power generative AI, warns advanced AI systems will excel at manipulation after “reading all the novels that ever were and everything Machiavelli ever wrote.”

Fair. But metaphysics is losing to psychology. Two-thirds of employees already interact with AI in “human-like” ways, such as expressing concern for the chatbot or asking about its day, and among Gen Z the number climbs to 85%. More startling: 37% of Gen Z would prefer an AI coworker — or even manager — in some situations, versus 15% of boomers. That perception, even if hyperbolic, is what leaders now must manage.

AI’s encroachment into daily life makes this clearer. In shopping, the time is approaching when you can point at someone’s shoes, say “I want those,” and have them appear at your doorstep. Already, 62% of consumers use AI to find or evaluate products. Morgan Stanley predicts nearly half of US online shoppers will use AI agents by 2030. Brands must now persuade both the human and the machine.

Robotics pulls the transformation into physical space. In warehouses, factories, hospitals, and labs, AI-enabled robots are moving from pilot to deployment. Humans will increasingly supervise fleets of robots alongside teams of people, with software agents choreographing the flow between them.

The critical question for leaders is no longer “What can AI automate?” It’s “What should humans, agents, and robots do together?” For each part of the value chain, leaders must decide which tasks machines handle end-to-end, which are shared, and which are shielded from automation.

They’ll need new governance clarifying roles when part of the team isn’t human: Who’s accountable when an agent errs? How do we maintain transparency when systems can’t explain themselves? How are AI-driven gains shared with people whose work and data enabled them?

Viewed this way, the J-curve is about how quickly leaders redesign the architecture of work. Organizations that climb fastest will treat AI not as a tooling upgrade, but as a chance to reimagine how value is created, how teams function, and what it means to lead in a workforce that’s no longer only human.

In brief

• Five generations, zero consensus. Workers share the same leaders but interpret the role through entirely different expectations shaped by age, economics, and cultural reference points. What Gen Z demands, boomers dismiss — and vice versa.
• “Proximity plus authenticity” is the new trust equation. Employees want more face time with leaders, but only if it’s genuine. Scripted town halls and visibility tours don’t count. What erodes trust isn’t distance alone — it’s staged engagement that feels hollow.
• Candor is a currency. The “bravery gap” — the gulf between how boldly employees want leaders to speak and how cautiously leaders feel they must behave — is widening. Leaders don’t need positions on every issue, but they must provide clarity on why the company acts (or stays silent) on the issues that matter.
• When Gen Z says they’d prefer an AI manager, decode the complaint. When a third say they’d prefer an AI boss, they aren’t imagining a robot CEO. They want the traits they rarely see in humans: consistency, transparency, responsiveness, and fairness.
• Emerging-market leaders are outperforming on the skills that matter most. They excel in communication, emotional intelligence, and collaboration. The lesson: Treat fast-growing economies not just as export markets but as leadership laboratories.

What the voices say

Leaders must bridge generational divides within workforces amid tech and economic change

Leadership has never been easy. In the 20th century, executives were asked to hold firms together through world wars, reconstruction, decolonization, oil shocks, and the first waves of globalization. Markets more often sat within national borders, competitive cycles moved more slowly, and most employees shared a similar picture of what a career and a leader should look like.

Today, the difficulty looks different. Leaders now face two big challenges. First is a more fragmented and unpredictable external landscape shaped by global crises, technological disruption, and AI reshaping work. Second is an internal environment where five generations’ worth of expectations are more diverse, more vocal, and more visible than ever. Leaders are expected to deliver strong financial results, reengineer their companies for an AI-first future, and hold together workforces that no longer agree on what “good leadership” means.

Many leadership models haven’t kept up. Firms talk a fluent language of empowerment and agility yet quietly maintain the approvals, controls, and inherited hierarchy of another era. The result is a gap between the rhetoric of a “team of teams” and the lived experience of command-and-control. In our data, that gap shows up as frustration with proximity, responsiveness, and emotional intelligence — key qualities modern leadership depends on.

Frustration with leaders has soared. The share of employees citing “subpar leadership” as a top source of dissatisfaction has jumped nearly 60% since 2023. Discontent is rising faster for younger employees, increasing by more than 50% for Gen Z through Gen X, versus only 30% for boomers. While 51% of all generations believe their company’s leadership model is outdated and needs to change, Gen Zers in particular are most likely to feel this way.

One reason this is so hard is that the generational split is no longer a subplot; it is the plot. Five generations now share the same org chart, but their preferences for how work should work — and what leadership should optimize for — pull in different directions. Consider these findings: Gen Zers in the US are 1.5 to 7.5 times likelier than boomers to exhibit several core workforce behaviors measured — diverging significantly on switching jobs, prioritizing flexibility, maintaining side hustles, or expecting employers to take social stances.

Meanwhile, boomers sit firmly at the opposite end: They are least likely to job hop, least likely to have a side hustle, and most likely to say they go to the office for a sense of teaming. Gen X and millennials fall between those poles.

We focus on the US because generational preferences vary meaningfully by country, and we did not want to imply a single global pattern where the data is more mixed.

Solving for different generations has always been part of leadership. But when those differences feel starker and more divided than before — and when external volatility and internal complexity are rising at the same time — it becomes a uniquely tricky challenge. Leaders have to hold multiple definitions of good work at once, and still make the organization feel coherent, fair, and worth committing to.

Leadership now requires proximity, emotional intelligence, and transparency

“Proximity plus authenticity” has become the new trust equation. One in three employees want more personal time with leaders — a 75% increase since 2021. To build that proximity, 57% of frontline staff want leaders to engage more often and communicate the strategy clearly. But proximity without substance backfires. Employees who see leaders as inauthentic are 3.6 times more likely to be dissatisfied, even if they receive regular updates.

Emotional intelligence is fast becoming the skill that decides whether proximity feels real. In a recent Harvard study, nearly half of leaders said emotional intelligence is the capability that has risen the most in importance. Employees agree: Emotional intelligence now sits among the top three leadership traits globally, second for Gen Z but, notably, sixth for boomers. Employees who rate their leaders highly on emotional intelligence are nearly five times more likely to be satisfied with them.

But perception divides sharply along hierarchy lines. Nearly three-quarters of executives believe their company’s leaders show strong emotional intelligence; only 31% of frontline staff agree. More than 70% of executives think they understand lower-level challenges; only 29% of frontline workers concur. When leaders believe they are showing up and employees experience something else, trust starts to shift from “what leaders intend” to “what people can reliably predict.”

The rising demand for proximity...

1/3

74% relative change since 2021

Share of respondents who say more in-person interaction with managers and leaders would improve their work experience

…calls for more frequent engagement that feels genuine

55%

Share of frontline employees who say leaders should focus on more frequent engagement and strategy communication, two of the top three priorities for building confidence in leadership

3.6x

Increased likelihood that employees who feel their leaders’ communication is disingenuous are to be dissatisfied with their leader

Questions: “What, if anything, could make your working experience better? What would you want to see more of in your senior leaders (CEO and C-suite) to make you more confident in their ability to drive growth in the business or in its profitability? How satisfied are you overall with the senior leadership at your company? Is this an area of dissatisfaction you have with your company’s senior leadership (CEO and C-suite): Does not feel genuine? Please select the reasons why you believe the company’s strategy and direction are not always effectively communicated to employees: Lack of regular and engaging communication channels”

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum surveys, 4 countries, October 2021 (N=812), 16 countries, July 2024 (N=10,225), 4 countries, September 2025 (N=3,504)

That disconnect helps explain one of the more provocative signals in the dataset: More than a third of Gen Zers say they would prefer an AI coworker or manager, versus 15% of boomers. This is not a blanket request to be managed by machines. More likely, it reflects frustration with human leadership that can feel inconsistent, slow to respond, or unclear about how decisions get made. Employees who cite lack of transparency, disconnected leaders, or perceived bias are 20% to 40% more likely to say they would trust an AI manager. In other words, when trust erodes, some employees start gravitating toward what they expect from systems: predictable rules, faster feedback loops, and fewer unexplained exceptions.

The perception gap is about whether leaders show up. But there is a second gap — what we call the bravery gap — about whether leaders speak up: the gulf between how boldly employees want leaders to communicate and how cautiously leaders feel they must behave. Employees are not only asking for more communication; they are asking for clearer choices and clearer reasoning. Employees want clarity on trade-offs, values, and the pressures leaders encounter.

In the United States, more than four in five Gen Z employees now expect employers to take positions on key social issues — a 30 percentage-point increase since 2022 — while that expectation has fallen among boomers. When employers stay silent, Gen Z workers are 89% more likely than other generations to leave. Leaders, facing rising expectations and a polarized environment, often fear that any statement risks alienating someone. Silence and vague messages become a survival strategy — and a trust killer.

This is where many well-intentioned leaders can misfire: They substitute “more touchpoints” for real connection. Leaders insist they are accessible and empathetic, but much of employees’ access to them is scripted — town halls, “visibility days,” and stage-managed visits.

Workers want something simpler and far rarer: to feel genuinely seen, not ceremonially addressed.

The task, then, isn’t to increase the volume of outreach but to make every interaction count. That means choosing in-person time with intent, using digital channels to listen rather than broadcast, and using face time to explain the “why” behind tough choices. Organizations can help by making emotional intelligence a real criterion for promotion, redesigning calendars and forums to foster real dialogue, and equipping managers to practice these habits in the grain of everyday work.

Proximity, emotional intelligence, and bravery work as a system. Proximity without substance is theater; substance without proximity never lands; and neither survives long without the courage to say hard things clearly and sincerely. Every time leaders explain a difficult choice, acknowledge uncertainty, or state openly why they won’t take a stance, they build trust. Every time they duck the question or retreat into vague language, they spend it down. The account is always moving — the question is in which direction.

There is a gap in how workers at different levels perceive leadership’s emotional intelligence and understanding

% respondents who agree with the statement

Source: Oliver Wyman Forum survey, 16 countries, July 2024 (N=11,174)

Emerging markets show higher leadership satisfaction

One of the more surprising findings in our data is that employees in emerging markets are far more satisfied with senior leadership than those in richer economies. Roughly two-thirds say they are satisfied, compared with just over half in developed markets. That difference is striking in a world where frustration with leadership is rising almost everywhere.

Emerging-market leaders stand out most on three traits: communication, emotional intelligence, and collaboration. Across all leadership dimensions, they score about 15 points higher on average, with the largest gap on these people skills. Employees say their leaders explain what’s happening, listen to concerns, and work constructively across teams. As a result, they feel more connected to their company’s vision, more optimistic about its future, and more trusting of senior leadership. In each case, the gap with developed markets runs into double digits.

What’s driving this? In part, it appears to be demographics. Workforces in many emerging markets skew younger, with large cohorts of first-generation professionals moving into the middle class. In that setting, employees may be more optimistic about opportunity and more inclined to give leaders the benefit of the doubt, especially when they feel their organization is helping to build something new.

That said, younger workforces are not automatically “easier”: expectations can be high, patience can be thin, and credibility can be lost quickly if leaders overpromise. The advantage is less deference than disposition — when people feel upward momentum in their own lives, they can be more willing to engage with a leadership story that asks for stretch.

Context matters, too. In our sample, many emerging markets sit in a higher-growth, lower-volatility zone than much of the developed world. When momentum is visible, change can feel like the price of progress rather than the cost of managing decline. That can make it easier for leaders to sustain belief in a direction, even when the work is hard.

Of course, this is not uniform: Emerging markets still face real pressures—cost-of-living shocks, rapid restructuring, and uneven gains — and developed markets still contain plenty of high-growth pockets. But where the prevailing environment feels more forward-leaning, employees may be more open to a clear narrative about where the organization is headed and why the disruption is worth it.

This is also why the familiar story that emerging-market leaders are simply battle-hardened by volatility misses what our data suggest. The advantage appears less about toughness in chaotic conditions and more about the combination of demographics and tailwinds that can make trust easier to build and sustain. In those conditions, what distinguishes leaders is not their tolerance for turbulence but their ability to convert momentum into shared clarity and coordinated execution. That is what makes these markets such a useful place to look for leadership lessons that travel.

For multinationals, emerging markets are not only growth engines; they are leadership laboratories. The lesson is not that these countries have discovered a secret formula, or that their models can be transplanted wholesale into very different cultural or regulatory contexts.

It is that where trust in leadership is highest, three elements tend to show up together: a believable story of progress, leaders who stay close enough to people to hear and absorb their concerns, and collaboration across teams rather than siloed decision-making. Growing businesses often feel like happier businesses. Where growth is harder to find, leaders have to work much harder on those same levers — clarity of direction, proximity, and cross-team problem solving — to supply the energy that growth would otherwise provide.