Only 13% of employees offered AI training last year

With the rise of ChatGPT and other tools, enterprises have become bullish on the potential of generative AI. They have started looping in LLMs into their workflows and products, growing not only the business of vendors providing these novel systems but also the demand for talent capable of leveraging them to the fullest.

However, according to a new Workmonitor Pulse survey from staffing company Randstad, despite this surge, AI training efforts continue to lag.

Randstad analyzed job postings and the views of over 7,000 employees around the world and discovered that even though there’s been a 20-fold increase in roles demanding AI skills, only about one in ten (13%) workers have been offered any AI training by their employers in the last year. The findings highlight a major imbalance that enterprises need to address to truly harness the opportunities of AI and succeed.

“It is clear that more employers are seeking talent with AI skills… AI is increasingly an enabler and enhancer of skills, holding a profound impact on productivity and overall performance in the workplace. But the imbalance between skills demanded by businesses and desired by employees, on the one hand, and the training opportunities provided, on the other, has to be addressed,” Sander van ‘t Noordend, CEO at Randstad, said in a statement.

Enterprises lag behind in AI training

Even though enterprises have only begun adopting generative AI tools, employees across industries are well aware that the technology is here to stay and are ready to embrace it.

In the survey, 52% of the respondents said they believe being skilled in AI tools will improve their career and promotion prospects, while 53% said that the technology will have an impact on their industries and roles. 

Similar stats were noted in the U.S., where 29% of the workers are already using AI in their jobs. In the country, 51% said they see AI influencing their industry and role and 42% expressed excitement about the prospects it will bring to their workplace. For India and Australia, the figures were even higher.

However, despite this level of excitement and readiness from workers towards AI, enterprises are missing out on supporting them.

As of now, the survey found, AI handling is the third most sought after skillset – expected by 22% of the participants over the next 12 months – after management and leadership (24%) and wellbeing and mindfulness (23%), but only 13% of the workers claim they have been given opportunities to upskill in this area in the last 12 months.

The gap between expected and offered AI training was found to be highest in Germany (13 percentage points) and the UK (12 percentage points), followed by the US (8 percentage points). This disparity must be addressed if enterprises want to use AI effectively, securely, and reliable to drive efficiencies across functions.

“AI is here to stay and the benefits of it are very clear – our data shows that employees stand ready to embrace it for their own gain too. Successful organizations will be those that leverage this readiness and harness the opportunities of AI in their workforce,” Noordend noted.

Training also remains critical for trust

While AI training and skill development help ensure effective use of new-age tools like ChatGPT, they also establish a certain level of trust in the technology, giving workers the ability to decide when to lean on AI’s outputs and when to bring a human into the loop.

In a recent survey by GE Healthcare, 58% of clinicians implied that they do not trust AI data and 44% claimed the technology is subject to built-in biases. With training/education programs, they can easily be guided on all things AI, starting from how it works to where it can best augment their work – ensuring accurate decision-making in medical settings.

“As an industry, we need to build an understanding of where and how to use it and when it can be trusted fully versus leaning on other tools and human expertise,” GE Healthcare CTO Taha Kass-Hout, told VentureBeat. “I refer to this as ‘breaking the black box of AI’ to help clinicians understand what is in the AI model.”

According to estimates from McKinsey, when used to their full potential, generative AI technologies alone can generate $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in global corporate profits every year.