11, August 2026

Fariba Bowen

5 -minute read

SANDTON — Corporate human resources personnel, learning and development leaders and business professionals gathered virtually on Thursday, 6 August 2026, for a high-impact webinar hosted by corporate skills training specialists, iFundi. The event, titled Future Ready Careers, presented a sharp analysis of how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the corporate workplace and outlined practical strategies for both organizational leaders and individual professionals.

Opening the session, iFundi Co-founder and CEO Stefan Lauber warned attendees against falling victim to “optimism bias” the psychological tendency to believe that technological disruption will affect others while leaving one’s own job untouched. Citing industry statistics, Lauber noted that while 70% of companies report deep concerns over skills shortages, only 39% are actively investing in upskilling their current workforce.

Lauber mapped out the technological shift into three distinct waves of disruption hitting the market:

• • Wave 1 — Chat & Information: Generative systems like ChatGPT and Gemini that process text, requiring human critical judgment to catch errors and “hallucinations”.
  • Wave 2 — Agentic AI: Autonomous software agents that make decisions and directly execute office workflows (e.g., booking travel or automating tasks). Lauber highlighted that enterprise adoption of Agentic AI is surging from under 5% last year to 40% this year.
  • Wave 3 — Physical Robotics: Autonomous physical hardware and robotics operating in warehouses, transit, and manufacturing.

To help workers stay ahead, Lauber presented a practical 10-step career framework. Key steps include conducting a personal work audit, establishing a strong personal brand, investing one’s own capital into short courses when company funding is unavailable, finding an internal mentor, and scheduling micro-learning milestones in a diary. He emphasized that professionals who acquire AI competencies can increase their earning potential by 35% to 40%.

Lauber also challenged traditional adult learning models, advocating for a “Four Legs of the Learning Chair” approach. Effective capability-building, he argued, requires a combination of interactive formal courses, project-based work-integrated learning (where 70% of lasting competence is developed), mentorship (accounting for 20% of acquisition), and self-directed study. He even offered a practical tip for daily learning: intentionally engaging with AI content on social platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn to leverage platform algorithms into automated, real-time news feeds on industry trends.

Building on the employer perspective, iFundi Academic Director Joel Perry stressed that companies must build sustainable internal talent pipelines rather than relying solely on reactive external hiring. Perry urged organizations to preserve institutional memory by upskilling, reskilling, and redeploying existing staff. He advocated transforming Workplace Skills Plans (WSPs) from mere annual compliance exercises into dynamic, multi-year strategic frameworks.

To support this transition, iFundi showcased two new digital applications:

• • Career Advisor App: An interactive browser-based platform designed to help professionals map out personalized learning paths based on strengths, interests, and changing role requirements.
  • Digital Skills Planner Tool: A digitized solution created for Skills Development Facilitators (SDFs) to streamline competency mapping, skills audits, and mandatory SETA reporting.

The event concluded with iFundi introducing an executive certification in Agentic AI, a no-code programme featuring a practical capstone project that enables non-technical leaders in finance, marketing, and supply chain to deploy customized AI agents within their operations.

While technological automation continues to accelerate, Lauber concluded with an agricultural analogy: just as tractors replaced hand plows during the industrial age, human workers remain the essential drivers steering modern technology. In the digital era, uniquely human qualities like critical thinking, curiosity, original creativity, and professional pride remain irreplaceable assets.