When Dell Technologies appointed Jeff Boudreau as the company's first chief artificial intelligence officer last fall, one of his team's duties was to educate its roughly 120,000 employees on this rapidly changing technology. It was to support education.
“From an educational perspective, [we] It sets a company-wide baseline so everyone has a common understanding of the technology,” said Matt Baker, senior vice president of AI strategy at Dell, who works closely with Boudreau. Masu. “And for those who want to learn more or need to learn more to do their job, we're going to do it in a structured way.”
Similar efforts are underway at consumer goods giant Colgate-Palmolive, where “the appetite is insatiable,” said Kri Pappas, global head of AI and senior director.
According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, four out of five employees want to learn more about how to leverage AI within their profession, and major employers are increasing their focus on AI upskilling. Masu. Amazon's “AI Ready” initiative aims to provide free AI skills training to her 2 million workers around the world by 2025. Most recently, Cisco led an effort with his Accenture, Google, IBM, and several other companies to study the impact of AI on dozens of pieces of information and data. Provides work on communication technology and ultimately provides insight into practical training for workers and business he leaders.
Colgate-Palmolive started by offering 20-minute training sessions shared across the company. This training session covered basics such as defining generative AI, outlining company policies on what to use and what not to use, and how to handle data responsibly. An AI hub has been launched to allow all employees to safely interact with his AI models.
But since then, the company has rolled out a series of optional hour-long courses that are more in-depth, covering things like AI ethics, prompt engineering, and how to identify the right business questions to ask your conversation models. .
“Technology is changing rapidly, so the safest bet an organization can make is on the skills of its employees,” says Pappas. “We are constantly evolving our training.”
Dell began its generative AI education efforts by providing policy details and helping employees understand the basics of several tools. In mid-2023, after reorganizing some senior talent to focus more directly on AI, the company began developing its core AI curriculum.
Dell is currently rolling out coursework on AI fundamentals. This course includes how to use AI safely and responsibly, and how to better understand how generative AI can improve workflows, and is required for all employees. It is being There's also a variety of coursework, ranging from introductory classes for non-technical roles to more complex learning for data science roles.
Approximately 20,000 employees at pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson have taken a generative AI induction training course, which is a prerequisite for employees who want to take advantage of the technology. Employees can connect with mentors and explore opportunities to apply AI tools.
“We have built a secure generative AI environment across the company. [large language models] and various stacks,” says Jim Swanson, J&J's chief information officer.
Since joining Cargill in 2022 as Chief Information and Digital Officer, Jennifer Hartsock has been working to upskill current employees, hire with the skillsets they need, and partner with universities to reach companies in 70 countries around the world. He says that he has focused on utilizing human resources. Operated by the company.
“Certainly generative AI is interesting, but so are the other technology and data skills needed to serve customers,” Hartsock says.
During his career at tech giants like Microsoft and Meta, Rajeev Rajan, chief technology officer at software maker Atlassian, has helped employers improve their workforce to meet the new demands of innovations such as the mobile revolution and its infancy. He says there was a moment when he had to improve his skills. of the internet.
“The difference with AI is that every engineer, and in fact every human being, needs to use AI, otherwise the work they're doing becomes redundant or less efficient. ” says Rajan.
Engineers in particular need to rely on AI, as new tools can automatically write code and change the flow of work in other fundamental ways. To achieve this goal, Atlassian created the AI School, modeled after a course offered at Stanford University. Engineers can complete the sessions in as little as 16 weeks if they commit to 2-3 hours of study each week.
“We fundamentally believe that every engineer in our company can learn,” says Rajan. He wants all of his 6,000 engineers at Atlassian to graduate from the school.
Big tech companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft have the innovation appeal and budget to attract top talent, but most employers will look to develop their own AI skills. said Kian Catanforouche, CEO of skill-up platform Workera. .
“Outside of technology, there are a lot of people who are trying to rapidly acquire AI skills, so companies need to upskill rather than hire,” Catanforouch says. “AI helps many people within an organization because it impacts productivity.”
Colgate-Palmolive and Dell each say they will hire externally, but the goal is to develop AI skills within their current employee base. “While we strategically recruit for rarer data science talent, in most cases the average app developer or data scientist can easily become highly effective using this technology. “I think they can improve their skills,” said Dell's Baker.
Pappas has similar sentiments. “You just need a few people from outside to bring in very specific skills,” he says. “And what I really need are people to be connectors, and a lot of that is sourced internally.”
Cybersecurity provider Fortra estimates that there are 4 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs worldwide. As AI-related threats become more powerful, more AI literacy is needed among those working in the data privacy industry.
“Everyone wants to work at Google and in cool places around the world,” says Antonio Sanchez, lead cybersecurity evangelist at Fortra. “But every organization needs highly skilled people.”
