SHL, the global leader in talent insight, has identified the "AI rebounding" trend, where employees replaced by AI are later asked back by the same employer months later. New research finds the trend is making workers more demanding, impacting more of the workforce than most leaders realize, and hitting younger workers the hardest.
SHL's Talent Mobility at Work in 2026 report surveyed more than 2,000 employed adults across the U.S. and U.K.
One in 13 workers (8%) say they would refuse to return under any circumstances after being replaced by AI.
51% would want a substantial pay increase before returning, 42% would want specific guarantees about future job security, and 40% would want full transparency about AI's use in their role.
Just over half (52%) said they have encountered AI rebounding directly, through someone they know, or by hearing about it.
Nearly one in five U.S. workers (19%) report firsthand experience, compared with roughly one in eight (13%) in the U.K.
Nearly one in four workers aged 18-24 said they've personally been AI-rebound.
"Organizations are making fast, sometimes myopic, decisions about their people based on an incomplete picture of what their employees can do with or without AI," said Lucy Beaumont, global senior vice president of product and design at SHL. "AI rebounding is what happens when a company automates a role before it has genuinely assessed the human capability inside it. The AI doesn't deliver, the gap becomes obvious, and the business ends up rehiring the same experts they just let go of, at a far greater cost."
"Underneath AI rebounding is a much bigger visibility problem," Beaumont said. "Most organizations don't have a reliable, objective gauge on what their workforce can do. Without that, AI adoption decisions become guesswork, which is expensive and erodes trust when it means exiting and then re-hiring the same expertise."
Fewer than half of workers (42%) believe their manager fully understands their skills beyond their job title, falling to just over a third (36%) in the U.K. Meanwhile, 54% said their employer favors external hiring over reskilling or promoting talent already inside the business, and 47% said they would rather be retrained for a different role than lose their job outright if AI significantly changed their current position.
"AI Rebounding should be a wake-up call," Beaumont added. "It's an early sign that organizations going through AI transformations need to understand their people, and their AI readiness, well enough to know exactly where AI helps and where it doesn't."
About SHL
SHL, the global leader in Talent Insight, transforms businesses by leveraging the power of people, science, and technology. Our unrivalled, scientifically backed workforce data and highly validated talent solutions provide organizations with the insights needed to optimally leverage their people's potential and maximize business outcomes.
