Consider a young professional comparing two job offers. Both promise interesting work and competitive pay.
One offers regular collaboration with colleagues in other countries, responsibility for decisions across markets and a manager who can explain how that experience will prepare the employee to lead. For a Gen Z candidate thinking beyond their next job title, that makes a big difference.
Our “The Borderless Career Generation” research suggests why: In a July 2026 survey of 1,022 U.S. Gen Z knowledge workers, professional networks and leadership experience ranked above artificial intelligence skills as contributors to long-term career success.
Those priorities challenge a talent development strategy focused narrowly on the latest tools. Employees also need opportunities to build relationships, exercise judgment and lead.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said it was at least somewhat true that AI would make uniquely human experiences, including working across cultures and countries, more valuable.
As AI takes on routine drafting and analysis, employers should preserve the conversations those tasks can prompt. Asking a colleague for help can reveal a missing perspective or begin a working relationship. Employees still need to test recommendations with people whose experience challenges their own.
International experience can put those capabilities to work. Collaborating across cultures exposes employees to different assumptions about customers, decisions and how business gets done. The career benefit depends on what they learn through that collaboration.
These expectations also affect the hiring decision: 59 percent of respondents said a lack of international career opportunities could affect their interest in accepting a job offer.
The survey captures expectations rather than proving actual hiring outcomes, but it gives talent leaders a reason to connect the careers they offer with the capabilities employees expect to need. Leaders can respond in three impactful ways.
1. Make global experience part of workforce planning
Learning how business operates in different cultures and markets was the most valuable global opportunity for 24 percent of respondents; regular collaboration with international teammates led for another 23 percent.
Connect those interests to business needs. A team entering another market may need stronger customer understanding; a future manager may need practice reconciling regional priorities. Give employees responsibility for that work, then explain in job descriptions and recruiting conversations how the experience will help them grow and contribute to the business.
Employees can gain international experience from their home country. Offer remote collaboration where it builds the intended skills and explain when physical presence matters. Employees should understand how the experience advances their careers, while managers should understand how it strengthens the business.
Make it practical to access. Cost of living or financial concerns were a barrier to international careers for 59 percent of respondents. Where travel is necessary, direct bookings or advances can reduce the need to fund costs before reimbursement. Offer alternatives where feasible. If participation or progress stalls, find out why and adjust the support or assignment.
2. Build capabilities and check whether they improve
Seventy-one percent of respondents said it was completely or very true that learning from people in different countries and cultures would make them better leaders.
When AI produces the first analysis, a junior employee may get less practice working through evidence. The time saved could also let them join discussions and contribute to decisions they previously only observed.
Design the next step into the workflow. Have employees check assumptions, investigate contradictory information and defend recommendations to colleagues with different perspectives. Assess their reasoning alongside the final output. AI proficiency still matters, but employees also need practice making decisions they can explain and take responsibility for.
3. Protect learning as AI changes work
Looking a decade ahead, respondents ranked communication and relationship-building, leadership and management, and adaptability as the three most important capabilities for success in a global workforce.
Talent leaders should consider the learning opportunities that may be lost when automating a task. An AI-generated analysis may save time, while also removing the steps through which a junior employee learns to question evidence.
Redesign the learning alongside the workflow. Employees can check assumptions, investigate contradictory information and defend recommendations to colleagues with different perspectives. Managers should assess that reasoning as well as the final output. AI proficiency still matters, but development should also prepare people to make decisions they can explain and take responsibility for.
Putting it together: Make career growth part of the AI plan
Start with one early-career role whose work is changing through AI. Identify what employees can now accomplish, what experience they may lose, and what new responsibility they could take on. Compare that with the capabilities employees want to build and the business will need.
Then, redesign one assignment. Use the time AI saves to give an employee responsibility for a cross-market problem, direct access to colleagues with different expertise and feedback on the decisions they make. Make that development opportunity explicit to candidates and employees.
Gen Z’s expectations give talent leaders a useful test for AI transformation: Will employees leave the role with stronger judgment, broader relationships and experience they can carry into their next challenge? If the work becomes more sophisticated but the career stands still, the development strategy has fallen short.
