The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is causing a paradigm shift in business. Within the next five years, 41% of executives anticipate a complete overhaul of business processes, rebuilding them from scratch with AI at the core, according to a recent report by Microsoft and LinkedIn.
A significant portion (42%) foresee the need to train and develop teams of AI-powered bots, as well as ensure the responsible and ethical implementation of AI (47%).
Businesses across diverse sectors, like healthcare, finance, marketing, e-commerce and manufacturing, are increasingly adopting AI technologies to drive innovation, increase productivity, automate tasks and gain insights from big data.
However, more than half of the business leaders surveyed (55%) expressed worry about their ability to find sufficient talent to fill positions within the next year. Employers have aggressively sought out technical AI talent, resulting in a 323% increase in hiring over the past eight years. They are also expanding their search, looking to acquire non-technical talent that possesses AI skills.
AI Skills Can Fast Track Your Career
An aptitude for AI is becoming increasingly essential for workers to stay competitive and relevant in a rapidly transforming job market. The high demand for AI professionals, coupled with a shortage of qualified talent, is making AI expertise a valuable asset and can even enhance your career prospects.
“Learning basic AI skills—such as prompt engineering, machine learning or data literacy—is the best insurance to shortcut your competitiveness against people who might have more experience,” Aneesh Raman, the chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn, told CNBC Make It.
The 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report by Microsoft and LinkedIn indicates that AI skills may become as important as job experience in the hiring process.
The research shows that the majority of business leaders (66%) will not consider hiring a candidate who does not possess AI skills. In fact, 71% of executives say they prefer to hire a candidate with AI skills, even if they have less experience, over a more experienced candidate who lacks an aptitude for AI.
Within the past year, job board site Indeed noted a “tenfold increase” in job postings related to generative AI. From April 2022 to April 2024, the platform witnessed an astonishing 75-fold surge in these job listings, Fast Company reported. In the United States, AI-related positions make up about 2% of all postings.
For workers, this demand may lead to increased salaries in a sector where the average pay is already considerably higher than in many other professions. A survey by Biz Report revealed that AI-related roles offer compensation that exceed those in other fields by more than 77%.
Additionally, while core software engineering skills will always be valuable, AI adds a new dimension. Therefore, just having coding skills may not be enough to compete in the evolving tech landscape.
Workers Are Leveling Up
Workers are urgently trying to retrain and acquire AI skills as companies are assessing their hiring needs and rapidly shifting their focus. The competition and urgency for AI skills is being driven by workers’ fears that their jobs could become obsolete if they don’t gain expertise in this game-changing technology.
People are taking courses, adding AI buzzwords to their résumés and competing fiercely for the AI job openings available. Seventy-six percent of workers recognize that they need AI skills to stand out in today’s labor market. Moreover, 69% of individuals believe that AI can accelerate their chances of promotion, while an even larger percentage (79%) assert that possessing AI skills will expand their job prospects.
The number of non-technical professionals utilizing LinkedIn Learning courses aimed at enhancing AI skills has surged by 160%, particularly among roles such as project managers, architects and administrative assistants who are eager to improve their AI aptitude.
Data shows a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills, like ChatGPT and Copilot, to their profiles in the past year, as they try to make career pivots into AI.
While employers look to fill their AI-related positions, job seekers are up for the challenge. Job postings on LinkedIn that reference AI or generative AI have experienced a 17% higher increase in applications over the past two years compared to those that do not include these terms.
Source: Forbes
