PwC will keep hiring even as AI reshapes junior roles: global chairman

[SINGAPORE] PwC plans to keep hiring even as artificial intelligence takes over more routine work, with the Big Four firm expecting the technology to change the nature of jobs rather than eliminate them.

AI is creating new opportunities – and with them, demand for different skills and roles, global chairman Mohamed Kande told The Business Times.

“AI is creating a need for a new category of jobs even today,” he said. “We will continue to hire people.” The professional services firm has more than 364,000 employees worldwide, based on its 2025 annual review.

Kande was speaking to BT on the sidelines of the Forbes Global CEO Conference held at Shangri-La Singapore on Oct 7. He took over as global chairman in July 2024.

The Big Four firms have committed billions of dollars to AI, including agentic tools for areas such as audit and consulting.

PwC is already seeing productivity gains from AI, as the technology takes over some mundane tasks and enables employees to do more with their time. But Kande said that this has not translated into job losses.

“The productivity improvement for us has not led to any job... impact,” said Kande. Instead, PwC is changing what it expects from employees as the technology becomes more capable, including how it defines the roles of associates and managers.

Kande said that the firm is placing greater weight on skills such as judgment, relationship building, systems thinking and the ability to learn, while continuing to train employees in their respective areas of professional expertise. He described the shift as “different recruiting”, rather than a reduction in recruitment.

And as technology takes on more work, he noted that the “human side” of professional services will become more important. “We actually believe that human interaction in the age of AI is going to be even more critical than before.”

Training future accountants

This will have implications for how future accountants are trained.

PwC has been encouraging universities to incorporate AI into individual degree programmes, including accountancy, so that graduates enter the workforce comfortable using the technology.

Kande said that future professionals will need both their core expertise and the ability to use AI effectively, likening its adoption to the spread of computers through the workplace.

PwC is also adding AI talent in Singapore to support its work across the Asia-Pacific, he pointed out. The firm has an AI hub in the city-state, which it launched in May 2025 with the support of the Singapore Economic Development Board.

PwC committed more than US$4 million over three years to the hub, which develops AI solutions for clients and the firm itself.

Its work includes solutions for financial services, the public sector, and transport and logistics.

Kande said that Singapore’s talent pool, multilingual workforce and familiarity with different technology stacks make it well-placed to support the wider region. “Let’s say that it’s the right place to be.”

Turning AI into financial returns

PwC’s push comes as businesses continue to grapple with how to turn spending on AI into financial returns.

During a panel discussion at the Oct 7 conference, Kande cited PwC’s latest global CEO survey, which found that 56 per cent of CEOs had seen neither higher revenue nor lower costs from AI over the preceding 12 months. Just 12 per cent reported both.

Kande said that some companies may lack the data, technology and governance needed to deploy AI effectively, while others are using it mainly to do existing work faster or more cheaply, rather than changing how they operate.

The size of a company is not what determines whether businesses can reap the benefits of AI, he added. Instead, he pointed to leadership, and whether companies have a clear vision for how they want to use the technology and translate that into adoption.

Kande said that when PwC first heard about generative AI a few years ago, the first thing the firm did was give most of its staff access to the technology, because “people fear what they do not understand”.

“So it is more of an augmentation to the people... so (that they) are not afraid of AI, (and) they embrace it because they know what it is.”

Even at PwC, the cost of using AI has been higher than Kande initially expected. But employee adoption has also exceeded his expectations, he noted, as the firm expands the technology across audit, tax and legal, consulting and transaction services.