Cognizant’s New Work, New World 2026 report finds that artificial intelligence could unlock up to $4.5 trillion in labor productivity across the U.S. economy today, a figure based on a reassessment of 18,000 tasks and 1,000 job roles in the O*NET database. The study shows that 93 percent of jobs have some degree of AI exposure, up from earlier forecasts, and that annual exposure‐score growth has accelerated to 9 percent, compared with the 2 percent pace estimated in 2024. These findings underscore the scale of near-term opportunity for clients to deploy AI in areas ranging from legal and education to healthcare and executive support functions.

Cognizant identifies dramatic year-over-year increases in AI exposure scores across multiple industries: legal roles have risen from 9 percent to 63 percent exposure, education from 11 percent to 49 percent, healthcare practitioners from 10 percent to 39 percent, and C-suite positions such as CEO from 25 percent to 60 percent. Manual labor occupations are also experiencing higher rates of AI assistance—transportation tasks have moved from 6 percent to 25 percent exposure, and construction from 4 percent to 12 percent. These shifts suggest that while some knowledge-work areas have reached near-term automation limits, other sectors stand to see rapid productivity gains.

Despite the scale of AI’s technical capabilities, Cognizant emphasizes that up to 40 percent of management, business, financial operations, and administrative tasks remain non-automatable, signaling the ongoing need for human judgment, contextual intelligence, and continuous learning. CEO Ravi Kumar S. warns that converting AI capital expenditure into real productivity growth depends on investments in digital fluency, adaptable systems and workforce reskilling. Cognizant’s own Synapse program, targeting 2 million individuals by 2030, exemplifies the company’s strategy to bridge technology deployment with human skill development and ensure clients can realize the full $4.5 trillion opportunity.

While Cognizant has maintained net margins near 11 percent by cutting SG&A as a percentage of revenue, the company continues to face headwinds from Indian wage inflation, limited pricing leverage and heightened competition from peers such as Infosys and Wipro. Management is focused on cost containment, leveraging AI to drive internal productivity and optimizing its portfolio mix with higher-value digital services. However, sustaining margin expansion will require balancing price competitiveness with targeted investments in emerging technologies and talent retention in a tight labor market.