Tulsa is spending real effort on a problem many growing regions share: finding and developing skilled workers. The Tulsa Regional Chamber has been building a talent pipeline for high-demand fields including engineering, accounting and industrial machinery maintenance. Tulsa Tech is also helping employers design CareerTech apprenticeships around the skills they actually need.

AI changes the design problem. Companies can now automate more of the routine work that once gave new employees their first exposure to a profession. That raises productivity, but it also removes practice unless leaders deliberately replace it with better practice.