Advanced technology has brought a huge change in all walks of life, be it business or others. Artificial intelligence is one of the branches of computer science that specifically deals with building smart and high-tech machines. These machines perform a task that requires human intelligence. Mathematician Alan Turing created history when he asked a simple question “Can Machines Think”. It is probably at that time that the goal and vision of artificial intelligence began. Today, leaders all across the globe are seeking AI talent in all sectors of the business world.
Rethinking AI talent strategies and scrambling to secure top-level AI talent has become an uphill task for the HR departments of all major industries. Large scale economic disruptions and setbacks due to the lockdown has increased the demand for the AI-enabled workforce all the more. Even before the pandemic, organizations in every sector were on the lookout to attract, recruit, and retain people with the required skills needed to succeed in a digitized, automated, AI-driven world. Leaders across all companies are looking to reduce costs and at the same time increase efficiency using the all famous artificial intelligence technologies. Businesses are still reeling with the impact of the recession, hitting the smallest the hardest, and driving the biggest towards cost-cutting.
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A survey by Deloitte has revealed an unexpected finding of skill gaps for AI implementations. Even with the advanced technology on record the AI talent pool is extremely low, what with more jobs available than the number of qualified individuals. To understand this better, let’s look at the three talent profiles namely; seasoned, skilled, and starters.
Talent hunt versus the requirement
At some point, the battle for talent hunt is faced by all three segments be it seasoned, skilled, or starters. Each of them has experienced a talent gap and companies struggle to fill these roles due to the increasing demand for skilled workers who can both develop and leverage new technologies. The future of work rests on the shoulders of the coming generations who are well adapted to the demands of AI talent. Topping the list of most in-demand AI talent is developers and engineers, AI researchers and Data-Scientists are consistently in demand followed by team and business leaders, project coordinators and managers, and lastly domain experts complete the list.
Talent search and source
The best way to get started is to train your existing experts, as opposed to hiring new ones. Sourcing out top experts from outside the organization is what all the three segments follow for obtaining skills and skilled experts as per their needs. Besides new alternatives that the companies can bank on are hiring fresh graduates with AI skills and incorporating them with their existing team that could reap rich benefits. Starters rely more on partnerships with other companies that have a dearth of AI expertise probably as a way of cost-cutting and various other reasons too.
Trainers and training
As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures and taking the right steps in educating and retraining the workforce is of utmost importance and the seasoned AI adopters are more aware of their shortcomings as compared to the other two segments. Seasoned adopters are constantly on the lookout to train their developers to create new AI solutions keeping in mind the future projects coming their way. Besides, companies are providing training for their employees to use AI in their designated jobs. In the long run, the companies will diversify their AI sources and build a bench of business talent that shall “speak AI” as well.
References:
- “Rethinking AI talent strategy as automated machine learning comes of age” | McKinsey writers Holger Hürtgen, Sebastian Kerkhoff, Jan Lubatschowski, and Manuel Möller | August 2020
- “The AI talent shortage isn’t over yet’’ | David Jarvis | 30th September 2020
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