AI Upskilling and How to Develop Essential Skills for the AI Workforce

Many companies, especially those with many jobs in information and communication technology (“ICT”), are deeply concerned about the impact of AI in the workforce. The increased use of AI and number of careers in AI are significantly changing the essential skills of workers.

There is also an increased focus on skills and abilities rather than work and education history. The world has changed, and it is no longer necessary to go to a college or university to be successful. A 2023 study by LinkedIn found numerous significant advantages to both employers and employees when using a skills-first approach to hiring.

To quote the LinkedIn report, “Against a backdrop of global economic turbulence and rising inequality, there is an urgent need to rethink how we prepare the workforce for the jobs of the future and more efficiently and equitably match talent to opportunity.”

Nine companies (Accenture, Cisco, Eightfold, Google, IBM, Indeed, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP) and several organizations as advisors formed a consortium to analyze the expected effects of AI on the most in-demand ICT jobs. Some of these, such as IBM, had previously completed large surveys that explored how executives expected their companies’ workforce demands to change.

The goal of the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium is “to empower workers to reskill and upskill with recommendations underscored by today's evolving job requirements.” The Consortium report is linked to many free (and some paid) skills development and training programs. The members intend “to positively impact over 95 million individuals around the world over the next 10 years.”

The current workforce is not ready for the quickly coming changes and therefore needs AI upskilling and AI reskilling. There is some good news: A 2023 IBM survey of 369 executives in five countries and Singapore found that an average of 87% expected job roles to be augmented rather than replaced.

Why are Companies Concerned?

These employers are concerned because their ICT jobs and employees will be quickly affected by the introduction of AI systems. Entry-level and mid-level ICT professionals will have the greatest need to upskill and reskill to be prepared for the new reality. Senior-level professionals may have more time to prepare, but this could be very specific to individual jobs.

“AI Literacy” is often identified as a core skill. It was defined in 2020 by researchers who distilled its definition from a variety of interdisciplinary papers describing research in human-computer interaction.

“We define AI literacy as a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace.”

AI literacy is identified as an essential skill in the Consortium’s 194-page July 2024 report. It discusses 47 jobs in seven job “families”: (1) business and management, (2) cybersecurity, (3) data science, (4) design and user experience, (5) infrastructure and operations, (6) software development, and (7) testing and quality assurance. The job roles chosen had the highest number of job postings in the U.S. and Europe from February 2023 to February 2024.

The report described the principal tasks and required skills for each of the 47 jobs. It includes detailed recommendations for AI reskilling and AI upskilling in required core skills as AI impacts those jobs. There are also links to specific courses so that people can immediately follow the recommendations.

Essential People Skills in the AI Era

In future AI roles, the required technical skills may become the “table stakes” required to be allowed into the game. The shift is towards organizing people as networks of experts rather than functional teams. This will increase the importance of non-technical skills as the differentiator among candidates for technical jobs.

While AI excels at tasks involving data analysis, pattern recognition, and repetitive processes, some social and emotional intelligence skills will become essential skills in jobs that have previously been more isolated. Reskilling in the age of AI will include competencies beyond technical skills. Some higher-order cognitive skills and new digital and technical skills will also be required. These skills can be grouped into five categories: (1) Core Interpersonal Skills, (2) Collaboration and Teamwork, (3) Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving, (4) Digital and Technical Skills, and (5) Additional Skills that do not fit within those four categories.

Core Interpersonal Skills

• Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Understanding and responding to the emotions of others will be crucial for building trust and fostering collaboration.

• Communication: Clear, concise, and persuasive communication, both verbal and written, will be essential for conveying complex ideas and working with diverse teams (including AI systems).

• Active Listening: The ability to fully understand and respond to others' perspectives will be vital for building relationships, problem-solving, and conflict resolution.

Collaboration and Teamwork

• Collaboration: Working effectively with others to achieve common goals will be essential in cross-functional teams or a “network of experts” instead of a functional team.

• Adaptability: The flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances and work styles will be crucial in a rapidly changing workplace. Resilience will be key for navigating through uncertainty without the negative results of stress.

• Leadership: Inspiring and guiding teams, especially during periods of technological change, will be increasingly important in a dynamic and complex work environment.

Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving

• Critical Thinking: Analyzing complex situations, evaluating information objectively, and making informed decisions will remain essential.

• Creativity: Generating new ideas, approaches, and solutions will be invaluable in an increasingly automated world as challenges and opportunities change.

• Problem-Solving: Identifying problems, developing solutions, and implementing them effectively will remain core competencies.

Digital and Technical Skills

• AI Literacy: Understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI will be essential for artificial intelligence professionals as they choose and work effectively with these systems.

• Data Literacy: The ability to interpret and utilize data to inform decision-making will be increasingly important.

• Digital Fluency: The ability to quickly learn and use digital tools effectively will be essential for most jobs.

Additional Skills

• Ethical Decision-Making: Navigating ethical dilemmas related to AI and automation will require strong ethical judgment.

• Lifelong Learning: The ability to continuously learn and adapt to new technologies and trends will be crucial for career success.

For information about free training on soft skills for developers and how to get into AI, see the section on training near the end of this post.

Which Job Categories Will be Most Impacted?

“The Transformational Opportunity of AI on ICT Jobs" contains detailed information. The analysis identified the proportion of each job and each job category (“family”) as one of three levels of AI impact: low, medium, and high. It also analyzed each job as an entry-level, mid-level, or senior-level position.

The data separates the seven job families into three very different groups in Table 1. Fourteen jobs in three families will be impacted the most, with about two-thirds of their work being very impacted. Three other families with 18 jobs will have about three-fourths of their work moderately impacted. Only the Infrastructure and Operations jobs have any low-impact proportion of tasks.

Expected AI Impact on Percentage of Job Tasks

Which In-Demand Jobs Will be Impacted?

Table 2 identifies the 16 jobs identified as highly impacted by the Consortium report and likely to require AI upskilling.

Table 3 provides the level of AI-impact assessment for all 47 jobs and indexes the page number for each.

What are the Essential Skills for Each Job Family?

Table 4 includes some of the “people skills” discussed in the report and necessary when considering AI employment, including communication, critical and creative thinking, and problem-solving. Other people skills are buried within listed skills such as “stakeholder engagement” and “project management.”

Thirteen skills were identified as essential skills for all 47 jobs that use AI, and they are probably relevant to other jobs as well. They might be categorized as important rather than essential.

Two skills, project management and retrieval augmented generation (RAG), should be assigned to more AI technology jobs. Anyone who needs to understand prompt engineering also needs to understand basic RAG, and the basic principles of project management would improve how people collaborate with an AI system.

What Training is and Will be Available?

Cisco, IBM, and Intel have committed to training more than 95 million people within the next eight years. More than 12 million already have been trained and certified by Microsoft, and SAP intends to have upskilled 2 million people by 2025. Google has committed $130 million to support AI upskilling.

Each job family and job role in the Consortium report is linked to a list of mostly free job-specific recommended courses. They are provided directly by the Consortium members or by recommended organizations. The list states that it will be regularly updated.

There are many online sources of free online AI training. For example, the following screenshot shows a list of seven free training courses on soft skills. Dora Vanourek of IBM created the list, and the links to the courses are in her post on LinkedIn.

Conclusion

Both major reports about how to work in AI focus on augmentation rather than replacement. The Consortium report was written to “enable workers to understand the skills transformations and find relevant training programs.” It is very thorough for the 47 jobs analyzed, and it has links to recommended courses for the AI upskilling and AI reskilling that will be needed.

Employers need to explore the significant advantages of using a skills-first approach to hiring. People need to take advantage of the offered opportunities to be part of the transformation of the workforce and artificial intelligence-related jobs.