2025 wasn’t just turbulent. It was a pressure test for credentialing. Amid layoffs and a flood of AI-assisted applications, 84% of HR leaders suspected candidates had exaggerated or misrepresented their qualifications.
Ian Davidson, Chief Growth Officer at SmartResume, predicted it last year: verified digital badges would become anchors of trust in the hiring process. He was right. Today, 86% of HR leaders are more likely to interview candidates who hold digital credentials proving an essential skill.
But employers weren’t the only ones raising the bar. The winners of our first Certified Impact Awards showed what’s possible when credentialing is built around real learner outcomes. Their innovations helped drive the record-breaking results featured in our 2025 Year in Review.
2026 won’t be more of the same. The credentialing landscape is shifting fast, and the most influential voices in education, training, and hiring are already charting what’s next.
Explore the trends they’re betting on and vote for the ones you believe will shape the year ahead. Follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our monthly Certified Insights newsletter to stay one step ahead of what’s next.
As we see more AI in workflows, JJ Janikis, Head of Customer Education at Asana, thinks credentials will evolve to measure collaboration with autonomous AI agents — not just basic AI skills like prompt engineering or content generation.
New credentials will help people and organizations distinguish between employees who feel comfortable managing hybrid human-AI teams and those who still need to develop that skill. Amanda Brantner, Senior Director of Content and Educational Portfolio Strategy at Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, thinks generative AI will help educators and employers design programs that fill those gaps:
These living taxonomies, she explains, will (1) allow institutions to update their programs to issue “just-in-time credentials” and (2) enable employers to subscribe to AI-generated skill maps to calibrate hiring criteria and talent development.
With AI, anyone can build the “perfect resume,” making it way harder for employers to tell who actually has the skills they need. Holly Garner, EVP at TuitionFit, anticipates this will intensify demand for credentials in the next year (and beyond):
Wendy Palmer, Director of Lifelong Learning Practice, tends to agree, predicting that digital credentials will overtake microcredentials as the headline conversation in education and employment:
Because the skills that employers value, seek out, and prioritize continue to change at a rapid clip, Selena Hicks, Director of Marketing at McGraw Hill, expects credentials to carry even more weight next year:
And in a world where employers are hungry for proof, badges are what give candidates an edge. Per Dr. Frank Sorokach, Associate Teaching Professor at Penn State University, recruiters are already looking at badges to signal domain-specific skills.
As technical skills emerge (and expire) faster than ever, the pendulum is starting to swing back toward human strengths. Clayton Lord, Senior Program Director of the SHRM Foundation, envisions 2026 as the year power skills — think critical thinking, adaptability, collaboration — step into the spotlight.
It’s particularly true, he argues, at a time when AI and automation are all the rage. In his opinion, the key to getting an LLM not to sound like an LLM doesn’t require more technical knowledge. It calls for empathy, communication, and resilience.
With federal policy changes, generative AI, and growing consumer doubts about the value of traditional degrees, higher education is under pressure to reinvent itself. Janet Schreck, Senior Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs & Associate Professor of Education at Johns Hopkins University, sees credentials as the new baseline.
Stacy Chiaramonte, Director, Center for Research and Strategy & Chief Research Officer at UPCEA, points out that the Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment regulations (and potential penalties) will take effect in 2026, serving as even more of a forcing function for institutions to prove their programs help learners gain the skills they need to score jobs — and credentials are an excellent way to make that case.
New funding requirements and education reforms are starting to treat verified, portable credentials as critical workforce infrastructure — on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the U.S., Ian Davidson, Chief Growth Officer at SmartResume, thinks federal and state leaders will only back career pathway and reskilling systems if credentials can move with workers from job to job.
The UK is headed in the same direction. Matt Rogers, Product Manager at City & Guilds, sees national reform pushing digital credentials from optional to mandatory.
The richer your credential metadata, the easier it is for employers to understand a learner’s skills and experience. But most badge data is too inconsistent, incomplete, or outdated to be trusted. David Leaser, VP at MyInnerGenius, believes AI will change that in 2026:
That lines up with what we heard in our 2025 State of Credentialing research. 24% of credential issuers are already using AI to generate skill metadata or tags, and 47% would like to. Rochelle Ramirez, SVP of Product at Accredible, predicts stronger metadata, along with AI, will take credentials a step further, adapting to learners’ performance in real time:
For the modern workforce, learning isn’t a one-time event. It’s an everyday exercise. Vennela Subramanyam, Product Manager at Google, thinks AI-driven personalization will make microcredentials the dominant way people verify and showcase their continuous growth at a granular level.
In her view, microcredentials will give organizations a precise, dynamic view of emerging capabilities, enabling faster internal mobility and more accurate talent matching. Gen Z, which now accounts for 18% of the labor force, is already itching for these customized learning pathways. Xer Cha, UX Leader of Educational Services at Snowflake, notes:
As they grow in their careers, the kinds of technical roles that Gen Z (and the generations that come after them) must prepare for will change. Jennifer Fong, Director of Continuing Education at IEEE, views microcredentials as the most direct way for people to break into these roles — and keep learning as the work evolves.
Some issuers already see the writing on the wall. In our 2025 State of Credentialing research, 17% of credential issuers said they are using AI to personalize learning pathways for learners, and 48% would like to start using it in the coming year.
Until the market aligns on what qualifies as verified skill, credentials won’t reach interoperability across systems and regions. But Curtiss Barnes, CEO of 1EdTech Consortium, thinks we’re very close:
Stephen Buckley, Managing Director of Digital Credentials Ltd, sees AI as the driving force for digital credentials as structured inputs across the full education-to-employment lifecycle.
And Danny King, CEO of Accredible, is already seeing customers go from experimentation to workforce-wide execution, expecting more to follow suit in 2026.
According to our 2025 State of Credentialing report, 55% of employers now issue digital credentials for internal development, reflecting a growing focus on recognizing employee skills. Yet despite this momentum, most credentials remain siloed in HR platforms and fail to drive broader mobility or market recognition.
Rochelle Ramirez, SVP of Product at Accredible, predicts that’s about to change.
This shift will blur the line between internal training and public signaling. The most forward-thinking organizations will credential not just for skill recognition, but for career mobility, visibility, and ecosystem value.
As employer credentials become part of the broader skills ecosystem, their internal architecture will need to shift, too — from isolated courses to interconnected learning journeys.
Per Noah Geisel, Microcredentials Program Manager at the University of Colorado Boulder:
In post-secondary, Noah thinks credentials will combine courses with industry certifications, work-based learning, and skills performance simulations.
Credentials are becoming the language of opportunity. The organizations investing in them are giving their learners — and themselves — an edge in a crowded market.
If you’re ready to lead in 2026, here’s where to start:
Subscribe to Certified Insights — our monthly newsletter read by 100K+ credentialing leaders. Get trends, expert predictions, and practical guidance delivered straight to your inbox.
Explore the 2025 Year in Review — see how your peers are turning predictions into progress with real platform features, learner impact stats, and stories from the Certified Impact Awards.
Revisit the 2025 State of Credentialing report — explore new data on how employers use digital credentials, what top education and training programs do differently, and the practices driving growth and trust.
The future is already taking shape. Let’s build what comes next.
“‘Embedded’ will be a hot new buzzword. Life is an integrated experience that doesn't conveniently silo experiences, and neither should our recognition and credentialing practices. As we embrace the ethos that all learning counts, leading practices will identify and embed disparate programming with related learning.”
“In 2026, employer-issued credentials go high-stakes. Employers have become the largest issuers of credentials, but most stay locked inside internal systems. As hiring platforms begin accepting verified employer credentials as trusted hiring signals, internal programs will start to carry real market value.”
“In 2026, we’ll move beyond issuance to scaled impact. The world’s largest private employer is now badging every frontline employee — not just for compliance, but for career development. One of the largest trade associations will soon issue millions across its career pathways. And one of the largest certification bodies will credential 500K+ professionals. Pilots are now pipelines for learner impact, workforce readiness, and enterprise-scale results.”
“Recruitment and admissions teams are being swamped with polished, template-driven CVs and applications that all look the same on paper. To cut through the noise, employers and universities will begin to require digital credentials as part of their standard processes. Applicant tracking systems and student information systems will need to ingest, display, and filter on verifiable credential data as easily as they handle CVs today.”
“Education and industry will converge on shared standards. Employers will demand transparent, machine-readable credentials and comprehensive learner records that make skills visible, comparable, and portable. 2026 will be the year learning, skills, and work finally speak the same language and credentials become currency.”
“Skills-based microcredentials will, in particular, serve an agile technical workforce by creating new pathways into and through technical careers, offering skilling, reskilling, and upskilling as close to real time as possible. As industries, technologies, and roles evolve, these credentials will deliver the most responsive, just-in-time learning.”
“Gen Z is driving the skill-first, certification-light movement. They’re skeptical of legacy certification and expect skills to be instantly visible. In 2026, microcredential and stacking programs will surge, outpacing traditional certification growth as Gen Z demands faster, modular, and career-aligned validation.”
“As AI analyzes daily work outputs, like decisions, code, customer interactions, or creative artifacts, it will automatically surface and validate micro-skills, making microcredentials the natural ‘proof layer’ of continuous development. This shift will accelerate upskilling and reskilling, as employees earn bite-sized, stackable recognition for learning that happens both intentionally and through real work.”
“By 2026, we’ll see the first credentials that evolve based on real-world output, assessments, and peer feedback, redefining how learning is recognized, from one-time achievements to living records that grow with each verified skill application. It won’t replace human judgment, but it will give employers and learners a smarter, more dynamic signal of capability.”
“Intelligent agents will automatically enrich badges with stronger narratives, verified evidence, and dynamic alignment to current taxonomies, frameworks, and occupational data. This will allow badges to ‘speak the same language’ across systems, making equivalencies and transferability visible in real time.”
“With UK reform accelerating, every new qualification becomes digitally credentialed from day one. Paper certificates will fade, and digital credentials become the foundation of transparency, portability, and employability across the UK.”
“RFPs will start calling for verifiable, portable Learning and Employment Records as the backbone of new workforce infrastructure. In 2026, it’s not about talking interoperability; it’s about doing it. Those who can’t will be watching the workforce boom from the bleachers. LERs won’t just be tech jargon — they’ll be the passport to participation in the future of work.”
“Despite two years of rising reenrollment, the Some College, No Credential population continues to grow, intensifying pressure to prove program value. By 2026, colleges will fold continuing education into core strategy — not the periphery. Expect accelerated investment in workforce-aligned, skills-based offerings such as microcredentials embedded in degrees, noncredit-to-credit pathways, and apprenticeship / earn-and-learn models.”
“Transparent documentation of learners’ knowledge, skills, and achievements through comprehensive learning records and microcredentialing will become a standard and responsive strategy in this evolving landscape. Such documentation will be a must-have.”
“Research shows a significant mismatch between Gen Z workers (who believe they have core power skills in spades) and older managers (who, to put it politely, disagree) — and in an era where the so-called “half life” of a hard skill continues to decline, a person with strong power skills is going to move from nice-to-have to essential.”
“A single badge can boost candidates ahead of those who do not have one. Badges signal not only the skills they represent, but also the willingness to go above and beyond to attain them. This level of signaling will become an even bigger point of value for recruiters.”
“Employers will increasingly need tools like digital credentials to help them better understand what candidates are truly capable of doing on the job, particularly for AI and tech-related skills that are surging in demand across many industries and occupations.”
“The focus will shift from courses to evidence: verifiable proof of what people know and can do, regardless of where or how they learned it. As AI exposes the resume’s limits as a signal of skill, trust will move to verified data rather than polished narratives. Education and employment will converge around the evidence layer, and it will be the learner (or earner) who holds agency over that data.”
“What feels like a villain — genericized resumes and overwhelmed hiring systems — is actually accelerating the shift toward skills-based hiring and verified credentials. As AI blurs traditional signals, it creates powerful tailwinds for a future where talent is recognized through proof, not paper.”
“Generative AI will help educators and employers continuously analyze global learning data — course content, labor market signals, and performance outcomes — to create dynamic, data-driven skill maps.”
“Skills will go beyond just building with AI but expand to competencies that highlight multi-step processes where agentic teammates continuously hand off work between humans and AI and back again. Credential systems will help people and organizations make sure there are best practices that differentiate workers with standardized training.”
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Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
