What AI Skill Sets Should Your Organization Train And Hire For In 2024?
Softensity’s EVP Consulting Services and Head of LATAM Monika Mueller is a Forbes Technology Council member, and this article originally appeared on Forbes.com.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already having an impact on corporate roles across the board. Is your company preparing your workforce accordingly? If you’re committed to operationalizing AI in your organization, it’s time to start thinking about what skill sets you’ll need to add to your workforce.
By now, many organizations have a road map of how they’d like to incorporate AI technology. This is a great place to start. Now it’s time to ensure that you have the resources you need to implement the AI capabilities your company has prioritized. There may be areas where existing roles can evolve to incorporate new AI skill sets, or trained to upskill current employees. Other roles, however, will be entirely new to your organization. Here are some key roles and skill sets that may be necessary to make your organization’s plans for AI a reality.
Chief AI Officer
If you’re serious about implementing AI within your organization, you’ll need to hire for—or consult with—a Chief AI Officer (CAIO). This high-level role is likely to be a hard evolution of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) role. With the appropriate skill sets, a CDO can take their data knowledge and evolve into an effective CAIO.
This role is responsible for defining the AI strategy, executing the roadmap and overseeing all AI initiatives. It’s their responsibility to determine how to align these AI efforts with the organization’s business goals, teams and resources. Essentially, this position is an AI strategist at the C-suite level.
AI Scientist
You have a choice: build an AI product within your organization or commission it from a third party. If you’re interested in doing the former and evolving these capabilities in house, you’ll need employees who are highly skilled at statistical modeling, data and mathematics—and have experience with programming languages like Python and R.
In many cases, this role can be trained for within your existing workforce. Data analysts with knowledge of programming languages and experience with data visualization will know how to extract insights from data within predictive models and provide data-driven recommendations. With training around specific AI techniques, tools and technologies, a current data scientist can become a highly effective AI scientist.
Machine Learning Engineers
While this is not a new role, your organization may need to staff up for it if there’s a gap in your current workforce. Machine learning engineers are responsible for developing, maintaining and optimizing machine learning models. This role is very similar to a software engineer, but it’s focused on everything related to deep learning and model development. Look for engineers with experience in programming languages for machine learning like Python, TensorFLow and PyTorch.
AI Ethicist
The ethics of AI is a hot topic and one that will undoubtedly capture the attention of the government at some point soon. An AI Ethicist not only focuses on the ethics of AI and ensures against bias, but also monitors legal and regulatory issues.
As the government becomes more involved in regulations related to the use of AI, organizations will need someone who can keep up with evolving guidelines and regulatory changes. An AI Ethicist ensures that the company has ethical AI practices, and mitigates identified risks to ensure that the AI in use is fair and unbiased.
AI Project Manager / AI Product Manager
There’s a good chance these skill sets exist within your current workforce. With AI-specific training and support, these employees can be upskilled to enable them to oversee AI projects. A Product Manager, for example, already knows how to do product management and market research. Specific training can help them build a robust understanding of AI technology so they can spearhead these types of projects.
The evolution of these skill sets into AI-specific roles can also breathe new life and excitement into more traditional roles, which can help you attract and retain top talent.
AI Chatbot Developer
This role will be crucial if your organization plans to harness the power of AI in a chatbot utility. AI chatbots are much more sophisticated than the first generations of the technology. Today’s AI-driven chatbots require natural language processing, so they require a developer with conversational design skills.
Chatbot Developers must be able to produce a simulated human interaction, and must also have experience in chatbot-specific development frameworks like Microsoft Bot Framework and Google Dialogflow.
Prompt Engineer
Prompt engineering is fast becoming an indispensable skill. These engineers must be able to optimize searches for AI to extract the most meaningful, relevant data. Beyond technical knowledge, data analysis and coding skills, prompt engineers must have a deep understanding of human psychology, language and creative thinking.
Reskill Your Current Workforce
The traditional educational ecosystem is currently playing catchup and is not quite ready to offer robust university-level programs to teach these new skills. Organizations will need to consult with an AI trainer or learning and development specialists in order to train employees on these new skills.
A longer-term solution would be for organizations to create their own learning programs internally, though that will require more time and effort.
As we all know, AI is moving at the speed of light, and no organization wants to be left in the dust. After you’ve determined how your company plans to use the technology, the next logical step is making sure that you have the resources to make that plan a reality. Proactive planning now through training, upskilling and hiring will ensure that your company is prepared to operationalize AI in 2024.