Because implementing artificial intelligence would create new positions—such as people who would train machines or ensure that the machines do not, say, hurt humans—the Accenture analysis found that employment could increase by 10 percent due to the increased need for human-machine collaboration. Humans would need new digital skills to collaborate with machines, and “human-interface designers” (the people ensuring that machines are user-friendly) would become invaluable.

The report found that workers across age groups are interested in developing new skills—the challenge is that they don’t always get the support they need to acquire them. Schools attempt to provide their students with skills such as computer programming that will become increasingly important in the 21st century, yet the highly uneven access to quality education puts certain populations at a disadvantage. Federal job-training programs similarly strive to help people gain new and marketable skills, but they struggle to achieve noteworthy results on a large scale.

Workers who need digital skills could instead turn to their employers, especially the companies embracing the new technologies that are changing the very nature of their work. But fewer than 3 percent of executives, the report found, plan in the next three years to significantly increase investment in training programs that would help laborers work in tandem with machines. Meanwhile, 58 percent plan to slightly increase training, and 39 percent plan to keep their training the same.

Companies “are at the very early stage of understanding that human-machine collaboration is where the real value is,” said Ellyn Shook, an Accenture executive who co-authored the report, suggesting that most executives are focused on introducing machines to help workers but haven’t quite figured out how to match machines up with human talent to maximize results.

Curiously, while employers seem to benefit the most from training workers, they appear to be the most reluctant compared to educators and the federal government when it comes to investing in training.

That’s largely because employers are more focused on instant gratification. Unlike the 1970s, when employers reinvested the majority of their profits into training programs, today’s employers tend to reinvest their profits into buybacks and dividends. That means a massive shift in corporate culture would need to occur—companies would need to realize that the training is worth the return on investment. “People want to learn and if you are offering training, that is an inducement to join the firm,” said Rick Wartzman, who has written extensively about employer loyalty. “Folks would stick around longer if you are investing in them.” Though the national turnover rate across industries was just 2.2 percent in November, turnover increased for certain industries: transportation, warehousing, utilities, and state and local government.