JFF Labs: The Future of Occupation-Specific Training in AI

As our team explores how we can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate progress toward economic equity, we’re filling up our “curiosity agenda” with big questions we’re eager to explore. We’ve been interviewing postsecondary institutions and other training providers to explore how our education ecosystem is preparing learners for the ways in which AI will reshape jobs, asking: 

How will learners prepare for occupation- and industry-specific uses of AI? 

• The generative AI wave has been met with a widening universe of AI courses and training programs in nearly every corner of the education ecosystem—and enormous demand among workers and learners. 

• Programs focused on building AI literacy for mass audiences of adult learners continue to gain traction and attention. Last month, for instance, Grow with Google launched its AI Essentials course focused on broad-based AI literacy skills for workforce development. Content also allows those looking for online learning to move from foundational literacy to specialized AI developer skills, including from Google, IBM, Amazon Web Services, and others. Coursera, which offers some of those same certificates, boasted more than 7 million enrollments in AI courses across 2023.  

• At the other end of the spectrum, many colleges and universities have been racing to launch degree programs in AI and adjacent fields like engineering and computer science, which have grown even faster than other high-demand STEM fields. We’re proud to see community colleges among the leaders here, with institutions like Miami Dade College (which we also featured in our Horizons On the Record episode “Will AI Steal Our Jobs?”), Houston Community College, Maricopa Community Colleges, and others offering or launching associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and certificates designed to build broader AI literacy, many through the AI for Future Workforce program built by our partners at Intel.   

• So what’s missing? We haven’t seen as much experimentation in the postsecondary landscape with industry- or occupation-specific training programs or credentials that prepare workers to use AI in specialized ways in the context of their job, beyond broad use cases for more general AI tools that boost productivity and efficiency. Many of these training programs will take principles from the AI literacy courses but make them more tangible, more industry-specific, and potentially offer more concrete ROI for embedding AI tools into existing workflows.  

• LinkedIn may be one emerging bright spot: as of March 2024, LinkedIn Learning offered 250 free courses on AI, including pathways for software developer, creative, finance, and human resource professionals. The Microsoft/LinkedIn 2024 Work Trends Annual Report, released this month, found that “in the past six months, the use of LinkedIn Learning courses designed to build AI aptitude has spiked 160% among non-technical professionals, with roles like project managers, architects, and administrative assistants looking to skill up most.”  

• But we’re wondering about the frontline workforce preparing for, or entering into, many of the jobs that offer gateways to economic advancement—many of which are already being reshaped by AI. How will the future of AI training in fields like retail and health care build broad foundational AI literacy—and help these workers develop the human and complex cognitive skills we believe AI will unlock? 

• We still have some lingering questions here, including to what extent workers in these roles may be interacting with AI that’s a truly new use case versus embedded in existing platforms like the Microsoft Office suite, Google, or Salesforce.   

• We’re also curious to get a better sense of the role formal training should play for upskilling on AI versus experimentation and co-creation. Companies like Playlab.ai and Anthill are both investing in solutions to democratize the creation of customized generative AI models and tools suited to employees’ unique use cases. We are seeing the value of this bottoms-up approach take flight at companies like Moderna, where employees themselves have created over 750 custom GPTs (OpenAI’s tool for creating tailored ChatGPT models) using ChatGPT Enterprise after receiving initial AI training. 

• But with only 25% of companies planning to offer generative AI training to employees this year, the postsecondary education and training ecosystem may have an enormous opportunity to lead. Will they seize it?