PwC says AI training isn’t enough. It’s teaching human skills too

“Some of those human skills people think are innate, either you have them, or you don’t,” she said. “But sometimes it’s just teaching them the level of awareness of when they need to lean into those human skills a little bit more.”

The workday becomes the classroom

PwC’s learning model is changing as well. Rather than relying on scheduled classroom sessions, the firm is moving development closer to the work itself through hands-on challenges, real-world scenarios, and AI-enabled support that appears in the daily flow of work, according to Burke.

“Now you will almost never see a training class where there are not hands on keyboards, where PCs aren’t up in front of them or some type of tools,” she said. “We’ve done vibe coding sessions, prompting challenges, scaffolding challenges. It’s all literally hands on the keyboard so that we’re working through problems and challenges together.”

PwC is also piloting AI coaches and assistants inside platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Copilot. Employees can rehearse client meetings, test ideas, and receive feedback before the real conversation begins, Burke said.

“We’re deploying agents that can help have client conversations for our directors or our partners,” she said. “They can literally practice the client conversation with a custom AI agent before they go to the client.”