UNLEASH World 2026: Skills to take centre stage in Paris – Again

Quick facts

• Dates: 20–22 October 2026
• Location: Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, Paris, France
• Scale: 300+ speakers, 250+ exhibitors, attendees from 140+ countries
• MuchSkills: Exhibiting on the show floor – booth SU436 (next to booth 413)

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Every October, HR and people leaders from across the globe gather in Paris for UNLEASH World – one of the most influential conferences shaping the future of work. UNLEASH frames the 2026 edition simply: an event to "repurpose humanity in the age of machines," bringing the HR world together to work through AI, workforce strategy, and the next era of talent.

Like previous years, skills sit at the centre of much of this year's agenda. In fact, this year the topic also gets a dedicated Skills stage, plus sessions across AI, Talent and Impact all circling the same question: Do organisations actually know what their people can do?

UNLEASH World 2026 agenda at a glance

UNLEASH World Paris runs from 20 to 22 October 2026: Closed-door summits and expeditions on Day 1, then two full days of main-stage programming across all seven stages on Day 2 and Day 3.Here are the details:

Day 1 – Tuesday, October 20

Focus: Closed-door summits, salons and expeditions

• 09:30–12:00 – UNLEASH HR 2030 Summit, with Josh Bersin and colleagues from The Josh Bersin Company
• 09:30–16:30 – UNLEASH Future Readiness Summit
• 12:30–16:00 – UNLEASH AI Summit, hosted by Stacia Garr of RedThread Research
• 14:00–21:00 – Expeditions inside Danone, Schneider Electric, Thales, L'Oréal, AXA, ENGIE, Sanofi and Sodexo
• 18:00–20:00 – UNLEASH Kickoff Party

Day 2 – Wednesday, October 21

Focus: Main stages open at the Paris Convention Centre, Hall 7.3, including one dedicated entirely to Skills

• 09:00 onwards – Full day across seven stages: Humans x AI, WorkTech & Pay, Talent, Skills, Impact, Spotlight and Builder
• 10:00–10:30 (Skills stage) – GSK panel on emerging leadership skills; 
• 10:25–10:55 (Builder stage) – GSK case study on scaling an AI-powered skills stack for 72,000 employees 
• 11:15–11:45 – Veolia: "Anticipating Tomorrow's Skills," with Isabelle Quainon
• 12:15–12:45 – Panel: "How Skills Strategies Have Grown Up in the AI Era"
• 14:00–17:00 – UNLEASH CHRO Summit, with speakers from SAP, RedThread Research and Randstad Enterprise
• 18:00–20:00 – UNLEASH Rooftop Party

Day 3 – Thursday, October 22

Focus: Second full day across all seven stages.

• 09:00–09:50 – Josh Bersin keynote: "HR 2030: How The HR Tech Landscape Is Up For Grabs"
• 10:10–10:25 – Cobrainer: "The Skills Operating Model"
• 11:15–11:45 – Siemens: "Skills for Life: Turning Skills into Siemens' Competitive Edge," with Bas Puts
• 11:45–12:10 – 'From Strategic Workforce Planning to Strategic Workforce Intelligence,' a fireside with Vincent Dupuis (Airbus Group) and David Edwards (Dark Artistry)"
• 14:15–14:45 – Synopsys: "Go Slow to Go Fast: Building a Data-First Skills Engine"
• 15:05–15:45 – Closing fireside with Louis Theroux: "Two Visions – Two AI Strategies, One Extraordinary Conversation"

Why skills-based organisations are at the centre of UNLEASH World

UNLEASH World is always a window into what's next for HR, and this year one theme continues to dominate: Skills. It runs its own dedicated stage for the full two days, sits alongside an AI Summit hosted by RedThread Research's Stacia Garr, and threads through conversations on HR reinvention, people-centred leadership, and what agentic AI means for work and roles – all orbiting the same point: Skills are the operating system organisations plan around.

Gartner's research explains why the case for skills and skills intelligence only gets stronger over time: only 8% of organisations say they have reliable data on the skills their workforce currently holds.

MuchSkills at UNLEASH World 2026

At MuchSkills, we've always thought of skills as the organisation's operating system, and closing the gap between what organisations know about their workforce's skills and what's actually there is exactly what the platform was built for. MuchSkills helps organisations map, define, measure, make visible, and mobilise workforce skills, bringing clarity to an area that has long been fragmented across systems, departments, and spreadsheets.

We'll be on the exhibition floor across both main conference days (booth SU436). Our AI-powered skills intelligence platform enables organisations to:

• Map every employee's skills, certifications, and development goals in one live, searchable place
• Search an entire workforce by skill, certification and availability in seconds through AI Super Search
• Build project and delivery teams around actual capability, not memory or guesswork
• Track certifications and audit readiness alongside skills, with a full compliance trail
• Turn workforce-wide skills data into board-level reporting on strategic capability

MuchSkills CEO and co-founder Daniel Nilsson said: "Every year UNLEASH World asks a version of this question: Do you actually know what your people can do? Most organisations still don't have an honest answer. We brought MuchSkills to Paris this year because closing that gap is the whole reason it exists."

The question that still needs an answer

None of this changes the question the rest of the agenda keeps circling back to. Organisations know they need to become skills-based, but most still can't see the skills they already have. AI has only raised the cost of not answering that question.

It's the question MuchSkills exists to help answer. Find us on the exhibition floor at UNLEASH Paris – booth SU436 – or book a demo before the event.

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