Organisations build culture debt during AI push

Rapid adoption outpaces workplace cultural shifts.

Companies accelerating artificial intelligence adoption are accumulating “culture debt” as technology moves faster than the trust, norms and skills needed to support it, according to Deloitte.

The consultancy’s 2026 report said AI is no longer a competitive edge on its own. Instead, advantage will depend on whether companies can combine technology with the human advantage.

Nicole Scoble-Williams, Global Future of Work Leader at Deloitte said it is becoming harder as businesses chase speed. Scoble-Williams said “7 in 10 leaders” are focusing their competitive strategy on being “fast and nimble,” but many are failing to put in place the human systems needed to sustain that pace.

Deloitte defines culture debt as the hidden cost created when change outstrips the workplace behaviours and relationships that hold organisations together. “When the speed of change can't keep up with the human systems that are needed to be able to sustain the trust, the judgment, the norms, the purpose that define our culture,” Scoble-Williams said.

Mark Teoh, the Southeast Asia Human Capital Leader at Deloitte said the early warning signs are already visible in Singapore. “More than two thirds of workers are already using AI. However, only a small fraction of them are actually using organisationally approved tools,” he said. At the same time, demand for AI engineers is rising faster than supply, with “nearly 5% of jobs” seeking AI talent but “less than 2% of the workforce” qualified.

Companies are also lagging in redesigning work around AI. “Only 28% of organisations are redesigning work and roles around AI to reinvent their business,” Teoh said. That gap is feeding discomfort amongst employees. “Nearly half of the workers in Singapore feel uncomfortable telling their supervisors and their managers that they used AI at work,” he added.

For Deloitte, the key issue is no longer whether employees use AI, but whether leaders are managing its effect on workplace culture. “The single most critical shift is to move focus from how people are using AI to how AI is impacting and reshaping those human interactions that define culture,” Scoble-Williams said.

Teoh said companies need to rethink jobs around human-AI collaboration instead of treating the technology simply as automation.

Scoble-Williams said the companies that move early on culture will be better placed to capture AI’s benefits without eroding trust. “AI levels the field, but choosing the human advantage is really what decides who wins.”