Artificial intelligence (AI) is already one of the most disruptive technologies in recent history.
But, as with any other transformative technologies, it will have dramatic impacts on the human workforce. The World Economic Forum, for instance, predicts that 83 million workers will be displaced by digitization. At the same time, though, 69 million new jobs will be created — and ultimately, these will require new skills.
To help the global workforce prepare, a group of the world’s top technologies has formed the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium, announced today at the sixth ministerial meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Leuven, Belgium.
Member companies include Cisco, Accenture, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, SAP, Indeed and Eightfold. They will collaborate and seek input to evaluate how AI is changing tech job roles and identify and provide upskilling and reskilling resources.
“All jobs will be impacted by AI in some way or another,” Nicole Helmer, VP and global head of development learning at SAP, told SDxCentral. “The only questions are on what time horizon and in which ways.”
Sharing a sense of excitement, urgency around AI The advent of AI will require a workforce proficient in various aspects of AI — from building phases, to prompt engineering, to incorporating AI applications across business processes.
In its first phase, the consortium will evaluate AI’s impact on 56 information and communication technology (ICT) jobs and provide training recommendations this summer. Ensuing phases will be determined mid-2024, according to Guy Diedrich, SVP and global innovation officer for country digital acceleration (CDA) for Cisco Networking Academy.
The group didn’t identify specific job titles, but Diedrich said that those 56 were chosen because they offer “promising entry points for entry-level careers” and have strategic significance to the broader ICT industry, Diedrich said.
These identified roles include 80% of the top 45 ICT job titles with the highest volume of job postings in the U.S. and five of the largest European countries — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands — by ICT workforce numbers, according to Indeed Hiring Lab.
The consortium is inspired by the work of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council’s Talent for Growth Task Force, a public-private collaboration aiming to build middle-income careers for millions of workers in both the U.S. and EU.
Work inside and outside the consortium will likely include deploying modules that provide AI skills training for specific roles, foundational self-paced AI courses and pathways for independent learners or instructor-led courses for educational institutions, Helmer explained.
“The future of innovation, growth, and global competitiveness depends on building a strong digital economy which in turn is dependent upon a digitally skilled workforce,” she said.
Individual AI training commitments from the world’s top companies The consortium’s wide range of advisors include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, CHAIN5, Communications Workers of America, the European Vocational Training Association, Khan Academy and SMEUnited.
Member companies have also made individual commitments to support the global tech economy:
- Cisco will train 25 million people in cybersecurity and digital skills by 2032.
- IBM will train 30 million individuals in digital skills by 2030, including 2 million in AI.
- Intel will help more than 30 million people learn AI skills by 2030.
- Microsoft will train and certify 10 million people from underserved communities with in-demand digital skills by 2025.
- SAP will upskill 2 million people worldwide by 2025.
- Google has already trained 100 million people in digital skills globally, and also recently announced €25 million to support AI training and skills across Europe.
He noted that “along with this [AI] upheaval comes a lot of opportunity. AI will enhance jobs that require problem-solving and creativity, and it will likely de-emphasize those that are more rote or repetitive.”
AI will change everything, upskilling is imperative The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that roughly 60% of jobs in advanced economies — including the U.S., U.K. and EU — are exposed to AI. The good news is that organizations are being proactive: Per Cisco’s AI Readiness Index, 98% of companies plan to invest in upskilling existing employees.
Helmer pointed out that AI will automate or eliminate various tasks while introducing new duties and expectations. With this “natural cycle,” she said, “every person in every role” must upskill. Developers, for instance, will likely need to learn to use a coding assistant to remain relevant and competitive.
If employees are not learning about the transformative technology, ways to integrate it into their daily work and thinking about how their role or profession may be transformed by it, she emphasized, their value will slowly diminish.
Furthermore, upskilling is absolutely necessary to avoid “major ethical failures at scale.” Organizations must ensure that people build AI literacy, learn to understand what to look for as they decide when, where and how to use AI (or, from a cybersecurity standpoint, when it is being used against them).
“It’s been less than two years and generative AI is already ubiquitously available,” said Helmer. “The knowledge, skills, discernment and comfort-level to work with generative AI to achieve basic efficiencies will be table stakes before we know it, for at least every type of knowledge worker.”