Staying one step ahead in AI education

The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 kickstarted a technological revolution, almost everyone involved with technology—from students to C-level execs—has experimented with the tool and businesses in nearly every industry across the globe have spared no expense when exploring the benefits of GenAI.

Fast forward to 2024 and almost every organisation is reaping its rewards, with OpenAI stating that 80% of Fortune 500 companies have ChatGPT accounts. In fact, businesses are rushing to integrate AI into workflows even before they’ve established corporate AI policies on how these tools should be used. Yet amid the excitement and interest for this technology, concern has emerged about how AI will impact the workforce.

To combat fear and uncertainty around job security, a common response is that AI isn’t going to replace humans, but humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI. Although this statement is true, it looks towards blaming the victims of this technological transformation. With the view that if you lose your job, it is your own fault for not learning how to use AI. However, given the rate at which the technology market is evolving, shouldn’t some of the responsibility to prepare and educate staff lie with companies who are implementing AI?

With this in mind, let’s explore how businesses can help to prepare staff for the inevitable transition to an AI-centric workplace through education.

Utilising education to ensure job security

Most jobs won’t disappear, but all jobs will change. Providing appropriate training to get employees through that change will be a company’s biggest responsibility. Learning how to use AI effectively isn’t as trivial as a few minutes of playing with ChatGPT makes it appear. Developing good prompts is serious work, and it requires training. That’s certainly true for technical employees, who will be developing applications that use AI systems through an API. It’s also true for nontechnical employees, who may be trying to find insights from data in a spreadsheet, summarise a group of documents, or write text for a company report. AI needs to be told exactly what to do, and often how to do it.

Another aspect of training will be verifying that the output of an AI system is correct. Everyone knows that language models make mistakes, often called “hallucinations.” AI will make mistakes and users will need to know how to check its output without being deceived by its overconfident voice. The frequency of errors may go down as AI technology improves, but errors won’t disappear in the foreseeable future. And even with error rates as low as 1%, we’re easily talking about thousands of errors sprinkled randomly through software, press releases, hiring decisions—everything AI touches.

In many cases, verifying that an AI has done its work correctly may be as difficult as it would be for a human to do the work in the first place. This process is often called “critical thinking,” but it goes a lot deeper: it requires scrutinising every fact and every logical inference, even the most self-evident and obvious. There is a methodology that needs to be taught, and it is the employers’ responsibility to ensure that their employees have appropriate training to detect and correct errors.

A look towards the future: How can companies prepare their employees

Looking ahead, companies must democratise access to workplace learning to honour their commitment to staff and prepare them for the AI-everything future. Companies can do so by providing a blended and continuous learning approach, one that’s underpinned by quality content. After all, your education programme must cater to a variety of learning styles and paces, so a combination of theoretical learning and hands-on practice is important to provide staff with robust and thorough training.

Your education program should integrate a mix of learning channels such as e-learning, webinars, workshops and one-on-one mentorship. Self-paced e-learning modules, for example, will allow for flexibility while scheduled sessions offer real-time interaction. At the same time, workshops, mentoring and on-the-job practice will offer more opportunities for experiential learning. Ultimately, this mix will make the training accessible, engaging and inclusive for all designated participants.

Continuous monitoring and evaluation of AI skills development will enable companies to gauge the effectiveness and make refinements where needed. Success for your education programme can be gauged through various methods, including regular technical assessments or certifications to verify the development of skills. At the same time, you should conduct regular feedback surveys to assess employee satisfaction. This combination will enable you to improve the program in real-time and your employees’ dynamic learning needs.

A happy union between humans and AI

Despite the changes AI is set to bring to the modern workforce, at the heart of it all is still a happy union of AI and the people putting it to work. When technical projects are delayed because teams lack the information needed to navigate obstacles that occur or employees are struggling to pull insights from large data sets, AI can lend a helping hand in steering employees in the right direction, putting the information they need at their fingertips.

However, investing in and deploying cutting-edge tools is just the first step, with IDC predicting that knowledge workers spend roughly 2.5 hours per day (30% of a work day) searching for information, companies must ensure training keeps pace with AI implementation to enable employees to streamline tasks and focus their time on more value-adding activities.

In today’s AI era, the best companies must ensure their teams have the education needed to navigate AI tools and this includes training such as prompt engineering to get the most out of tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. This should be in addition to upskilling training to improve workplace productivity.

Companies who utilise AI to its fullest potential will ultimately see the biggest business benefits, however this is just one piece of the puzzle. Without the proper education on how to use such tools efficiently the value of this technology will be lost. Therefore, in 2024 if companies wish to cultivate a highly skilled workforce that is prepared for the era of AI, their biggest responsibility will be to provide appropriate learning opportunities for their people to thrive working with AI.