IT leaders rethink talent strategies to cope with AI skills crunch

As a result, CIOs at most companies have a tougher time attracting machine learning engineers, prompt engineers, and other AI-specific talent, Goldberg says. That leaves many turning to AI consultants and training their existing data engineers, enterprise architects, and others so they can slide into those AI positions.

“They’re assessing workers within their own organizations and looking at those on their own teams who are high performers who could take on this work,” he adds.

That’s happening even at the top: Professional services firm Genpact in February announced that it expanded Vidya Rao’s role from CIO to chief technology and transformation officer to reimagine “internal processes, tools, technologies, and infrastructure with an AI-first approach.” Additionally, Rao was tasked with fortifying Genpact’s data capabilities in part to guide its AI initiatives.

As part of that work, Rao is creating an AI center of excellence for which she says, “We now have to hire, find, and upskill.”