Infographic SHRPA 2026: Blind Spots for AI in HR Across Asia and Middle East

Across India, SEA and the Middle East, HR leaders are looking at AI with a lot of common ground. Hiring and HR operations are expected to have the biggest impact in every region, and hiring is also where most of the investment is going. The areas being pulled back are those tied to how employees experience work over time: employee experience, succession management and rewards. In that sense, the regions share the same ambition, and they agree on where AI should make its mark first.

Each region feels underserved in a different place, and in each case the gap sits close to where its ambition is highest. India expects a high impact in HR operations and says it is underserved there, along with workforce planning, which suggests a push to automate that supply has not yet matched. SEA and the Middle East expect AI to go further and inform decisions through analytics, yet analytics is exactly where they feel underserved.