The AI edge: how organisations can upskill to get ahead of the curve

Artificial intelligence has the capacity to empower people, but how can businesses equip their staff to deploy it productively in the workplace?

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is threatened by a global lack of skills. One recent survey shows that 81 per cent of participating organisations had already deployed AI tools or planned to do so. But just 12 per cent were confident that their IT professionals could work with such technology. And a report published this year by Thomson Reuters suggested a lack of suitably qualified candidates for 50 per cent of the AI positions that need filling.

“People’s appetite to learn is going to be the number one determinant of whether the workforce can go through the tremendous change that AI is bringing and come out as winners,” says Jayney Howson, Senior Vice President, Global Learning and Development at ServiceNow, the AI platform for business transformation. “We’re going to have to reconnect with the sort of curiosity and wonder that we had as kids.”

In order to find out how business leaders can help bridge this AI skills gap and ensure employees are engaged with the new technology, we spoke to several experts in the sector.

Howson argues that while workers may be nervous about AI, there is a huge opportunity to excite them while allaying their fears. AI can, for example, make work more fulfilling by stripping out the mundane and repetitive elements of many jobs. “This is a human renaissance enabled by a technology revolution,” she argues. “But it requires strong leadership; the only thing that’s going to get people through the fear is support and encouragement from managers and leaders at every stage of the learning process.”

Somayeh Aghnia, Co-founder and Chairwoman, London School of Innovation (LSI) of digital transformation specialist Geeks, likens adjusting to the AI world to the process of dealing with grief. “To equip people with the skills they need, we need to understand where they stand now,” she says. “Depending on their experience of engagement with technology and whether their organisation is a leader or a laggard, people are in denial, they’re angry and depressed – or they’ve accepted change.”

Leaders therefore need to be patient and to show people what is going to be possible, Aghnia says. “You have to inspire people with a vision of how their working lives and careers are going to change for the better, so they feel safe enough to embrace the opportunity.” The implication of such warnings is that equipping staff for an AI future will require employers to do more than simply offer technical training. Indeed, the cultural support required – the need to ensure employees at every level of the organisation are engaged and inspired – may be tougher to get right.

Jenny Rae, Chief Information Officer at Imperial College London, has addressed this concern directly as her organisation increases its investment in AI technology. “The message to staff that we really double down on is that AI is here to augment what they do – to support their critical thinking,” she says. “Partly, that’s about showing them what we want to achieve, with a business roadmap that sets out the outcomes we’re hoping for. It’s also about allowing them to get more comfortable with AI – encouraging them to experiment and to see what it might help them to do.”

ServiceNow’s Howson believes traditional approaches to learning – one-off courses delivered in a training suite, say – aren’t going to cut it. “The learning has to be predictive and personalised in order to be valuable,” she says. “Learning needs to be immersive; it must be right for the person it’s aimed at, and rooted in the way they work and the roles they perform.”

There is also the challenge of training the next generation so that they enter the workforce AI-ready. Some education providers already recognise this need. The University of California, for example, has launched a multidisciplinary, campus-wide AI curriculum for undergraduate students. City University in London offers a similar type of AI course aimed at postgraduate students.

Additionally, employers can seize opportunities to work with the education sector to build on these foundations – and to make sure as many people as possible have access to learning and development. This is important, not least because an embrace of diversity and inclusion will expand the overall talent pool.

ServiceNow’s NextGen programme is a good example of what is possible. It focuses on providing underserved or underrepresented individuals with a portfolio of free workforce advancement opportunities to break into and build lifelong careers in tech, while bridging the gaps of racial equity, gender equity and generational balance in the tech industry. The idea is to encourage and enable a much wider group of people to consider technology careers. Elsewhere, many employers are offering apprenticeships and internships in tandem with education providers.

LSI's Somayeh Aghnia argues that the responsibility for AI education and training has to be shared. “This is not just another technology: AI is going to transform our societies,” she says. “We need to help people to think about AI as a solution, and to develop their muscles so they have the strength to work out for themselves which problems it is going to solve for them.”

Organisations that rise to that challenge will have a genuine opportunity to secure competitive advantage through AI. There is no doubt that some employees are nervous about what AI could mean for their roles in the future. The employer’s role is therefore to reassure and enthuse – in fact, AI will mean that people will be doing much more meaningful work, making more valuable and purposeful contributions. The tedious and repetitive elements of their jobs will disappear.

However, getting that message across isn’t simply a question of repeating it. Employers will also need to equip their workforces with the skills they need to take advantage of what’s on offer – both the technical skills to use new tools, and the human attributes to embrace technology with imagination and excitement.