IT leaders’ AI talent needs hinge on reskilling

The company recognizes that it will need to take a “dual approach,” by training current employees to work with AI, but also hiring AI technicians from the outside, Sagar says. Outside AI expertise will be needed, but current employees have institutional knowledge that new employees will lack.

 “There has to be a marriage between the AI skill sets that somebody can bring and the practical application of what that means at the company level,” she says. “You can come in with the best expertise in the domain, but you really don’t know how the company, the applications are not as effective.”

TE Connectivity appears to be ahead of the pack with its retraining and reskilling programs, according to a new survey from Deloitte.

Deloitte’s State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report for the second quarter of 2024, found that 75% of the nearly 2,000 IT and line-of-business leaders surveyed anticipate changing their talent strategies within the next two years because of generative AI. Less than one in five say they are already changing their approach to hiring and training.

Slightly less than half of the leaders planning changes say they will focus on reskilling employees, and a similar percentage plan to redesign work processes to take advantage of generative AI. Over a third plan to launch AI fluency programs, and another third want to reassess their talent acquisition strategies.

An AI talent shortage will hit both the IT side of businesses and the strategic side, says Deborshi Dutt, US AI strategic growth leader at Deloitte.