Skillsoft CIO Orla Daly on the AI Skills Gap

foreign speaks we're talking about the difficulty that companies are having hiring professionals with expertise in artificial intelligence and how both companies and job Seekers can best navigate the skills Gap in AI to discuss that I'm joined by Orla daily Chief Liberation officer at skillsoft Oral very good to have you with us today thanks for having me James no I kind of made an assumption in my introduction that companies really are grappling with the skills Gap and AI first of all am I correctly thinking that is he our company is really having a hard time hiring skilled AI professionals yes um they are and you know I think this is a it's an evolving space right and we're still just grappling with what are even the AI skills that we need um but certainly this is something that the world economic Forum has highlighted as one of the key skill gaps and I think an area where they're saying there will be tools to 1 million jobs created between now and 2027. um similarly we recently completed the 19 skills um and salary report at skillsoft and this was one of the key areas that those surveys Express challenges in hiring so certainly I think it's top of mind right now do you think it's a question of oh we'd like to have more but we're doing okay there's more a question of companies thinking gosh we're really lagging in this and major initiatives are not being fielded because we don't have enough staff um good question I think it's more people are trying to figure out what they need in order to take advantage of what EI offers and I think it's more at that point right now just even you know talking to others um in the industry I do think people are grappling ways there is a ton of opportunity with AI how do we think about taking advantage of that in a responsible way as quickly as possible so we're not left behind and in order to do that what are the skills that I need and what are the skills that I have within my organization that I can really bring to bear quickly to allow me to kind of keep pace well I I guess it's it's probably fair to say that artificial intelligence is not quite new but the the the the high emphasis being placed on AI now is new perhaps dating to the when chat CPT debuted in the end of 2022 okay so I think it may be some companies in some some individuals are still trying to find their way what what do we need to hire what and what are our products going to be so it's still very much I'm going to guess the industry is still very much in flux so all right so let's say there's a company out there that wants to boost their AI hiring what sort of advice would you give to that company so I think first it's thinking about what are the AI skills you need so when we think about AI to your point it has been out there for a while and now it's kind of evolving at a much faster Pace I guess with generative AI specifically but even we're seeing you know with the attention that that's getting it's also highlighting areas where we can use more predictive Ai and that's just bringing more attention in general to the area which is goodness so I think first off it's understanding what are the specific skills you need um I think we're also seeing that ultimately AI is impacting every Rule and every role now I think needs to understand how they can work with AI and take advantage of AI so it's ultimately impacting our traditional roles as well um so how do we then prepare the workforce for that um and then just thinking about I think that it really gets back to the business value and what is the business value that we can create and therefore what are the both domain knowledge as well as maybe the technical skills as well as more of the power skills so we're also seeing a lot in terms of to really take advantage of AI you know it's really about creative thinking it's about problem solving it's about you know ultimately how can you engage in a productive way with some of the tools that are available so it's not just the technical skills um so I think it's really start with taking inventory off what is it that you're trying to maybe achieve with AI and then in order to do that what are the core skills that you need to either augment within your existing organization or um you know retrain obscale individuals interesting okay well I'm sure there are plenty of it professionals out there who are thinking Hmm I'm already in the tech industry or maybe I'm headed towards industry it's going to be a lot of quite lucrative AI job openings out there yes those individuals you know train themselves navigate set themselves up for one one of those lucrative artificial intelligence jobs on the horizon good question and I guess this is a little bit where maybe quoting was a few years ago over everybody was looking to learn to code um and I mean I think it does start with first you know some of those core technical skills then obviously there is no substitute for ultimately you have to complete the training and learn the skills so I think you know seeking skills training specific to the technical areas you're interested in certifications are always super important and we certainly see that again with just the I.T skills and salary report that we did that those are certainly valued by companies that are hiring um so I think and especially in an area that's newer or evolving than having some good credentials and certifications I think are important for folks that are looking to Branch into that area your area you did talk about the report is there any way do you have any knowledge about what specific job titles are are most open now for the AI crowd or you don't necessarily study that I don't remember off the top of my head to be honest it's probably in the report but I don't have it at my fingertips sure it's a lot of certainly follow up with you on that good good it'd be nice to put that in the article yeah all right well let's let's drill down to skillsoft and how how skill soft is addressing the AI skills Gap I mean how is skill stops helping so I think for skinsoft it's probably twofold one how do we help our customers and then how does it impact what we're doing internally um you know first off I would say it's an exciting time to be at skillsoft it's certainly you know AI is very much a topic of conversation there's a lot of positive energy around it in terms of just the opportunity again that it brings both in the larger business context as well as for us internally so with our customers you know we're doing a lot around obviously producing content to support our learning community in terms of how to use AI responsibly and some of the ethics and compliance topics around AI um as well as then we've created or recently launched a chat gbt Journey which gets into more the technical side of things as well as how do you write good prompts so the whole topic of prompt engineering um we're also working on content around just how do you reimagine business processes and different business models in the context of AI so a lot of good work happening in terms of just content around how to take advantage of AI um and then also it's allowing us to think differently in terms of how we create the content so not just the content itself um and I would say you know allowing us to make some of our portfolio more interactive um with just some of the capabilities the generative AI will now bring so that's something we're exploring it's also allowing us to localize more effectively um which then will allow us to just expand out our portfolio of learning offerings obviously in a broader range um so that's some of what we're doing on the customer side and then I would say internally it is like everyone we're looking for those productivity gains that can be had by having generative Ai and just what are some of the more efficient smarter ways that we can get work done really really interesting and I think one one point that really stuck out for me there is the idea of a a prompt engineer so people will need to be trained to properly prompt the generative AI applications and there'll be a job title called prompt engineer which I've not heard that I think yeah it's interesting because you know I've been reading up a lot around obviously the topic of AI and just even again discussing with peers and it seems like there's a split in the whole topic of prompt engineering um because in one sense yes being able to engage with chat gbt in and any of the models right effectively will allow you to get better returns but then on the other hand you know folks are saying well these models are created so that people can engage in a more conversational Manner and therefore it should be less about you know you phrasing your question exactly correctly and more about how you go back and forth and continue to evolve the conversation with you know Chachi t as an example but I think there's certainly something there it's like the age of old and how do you get good requirements from the business you know how do you make sure you're asking the right questions you kind of this is now I guess the modern version of that in terms of how do we engage most effectively with chat with chat gbt or other similar AI tools I mean it's really fascinating I think that I might want to be a prompt engineer when I grow up it seems like it's going to be a lucrative job yeah it's interesting hand I'm going to guess if there's a lot of people that are so uh uh they spent so much time playing with it they're most prompt Engineers by Dent of sheer experience I don't know and I think this is a nice bit too probably about a lot of what we're seeing with generative AI is that you know you talked about for folks that want to get into this space and how do they upskill like in one sense it is pretty democratized in terms of anybody right it can gain the skills it doesn't have that maybe high cost to entry and that's a more technical rules have so I think it'll be nice to see how that evolves but hopefully it gives a broader group access to rethinking their careers or their skills all right well I think the big question is the the future of the AI skills Gap I'm thinking well maybe it'll go away over the next 18 months two years and I'm thinking no because the AI itself is going to grow so rapidly so yeah what what do you think you're close to the market what how do you see the idea of the AI skills Gap evolving over the next oh one three years maybe a little further out it's a good question and I think I mean the key is I think it's going to evolve um and at this stage it's a little bit hard to tell you know where it's going to go I do think things will probably normalize um you know we're in a certain wave right now um and therefore there's a lot of new skills or you know like prompt Engineers that really going to be a thing or not um so I think it will normalize I guess is the main thing but to your point it's not going away I do think It ultimately is going to impact every role so I think it's going to be maybe less about what are the specialist AI job titles and roles that we need there's some of that but more importantly it's going to be how does how is every role going to evolve or does it need to evolve to incorporate that AI is part of our world and it's part of how we get things done and for those that can figure out how to do that well it will be a differentiator whether that's you know in terms of how we can increase efficiencies internally or just how you can go to market and make an impact and bring value from a customer perspective so I do think it's maybe a little different from some of the other um you know key skill changes we've seen in the past where they have been Maybe you know in a particular area or have a particular Focus where this one is going to be a little bit broader in terms of ultimate data impacts all roles and what does that look like very very broad for sure I mean the one thing I would have a question about is you said it may normalize I kind of hope that it does normalize I'm wondering if it really will because the the the chain The Arc of the change here feels so really revolutionary I'm not sure it is going to normalize or maybe I'd miss it what do you mean when you say it's going to normalize I mean I guess what I'm thinking is they will figure out which of the rules and the skills have stickiness and are going to endure versus you know something that's right now it's current and it's important because this is new and while it's new there's a heavy emphasis on certain aspects but then again as you as this becomes the norm which ultimately it will then I think there may be less emphasis on certain areas um so that yeah I guess that's where I was going with it right okay it makes a lot of sense yeah well I I think if you've said it it's a lot of good stuff uh it's gonna be interesting sector to follow and I'm sure the skill soft will be playing a role there um thank you so much for sharing your expertise today oh well I appreciate the time thank you foreign

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