Dive Brief:
- Artificial intelligence technology is progressing more quickly than the ability to understand or measure human capability alongside it, according to a new report from talent management firm Talogy.
- The study found that AI is “outstripping human readiness” and even outpacing workers’ capacity to determine how AI could add long-term value to organizations. As a result, 78% of people surveyed said they had trouble assessing AI skills because current frameworks lacked the necessary depth and clarity.
- While 95% of respondents said AI was automating work at their company “at least moderately,” only 38% said they felt “very prepared” to adjust job descriptions and career paths for AI. “AI is evolving faster than our ability to understand what good AI-human performance looks like,” a release accompanying the report said.
Dive Insight:
The survey of 207 senior HR leaders, talent acquisition managers and learning and development experts in the U.S. and the U.K. covered sectors including manufacturing, retail and commerce, financial services and fintech, healthcare, technology and the public sector and government.
It highlighted “a concerning gap between the pace AI is changing” and the speed at which workers have been able to adapt.
Many respondents said that the current assessment frameworks for AI skills were too generic and lacked role-specific insights. In addition, people surveyed said those frameworks didn’t take into account the value of transferable skills.
HR leaders said the most important skills today were AI tool proficiency (48%), data literacy (43%), adaptability (42%), problem solving (40%) and judgment and critical thinking (36%). All of these are “largely transferable, softer skills” that indicate people’s ability to work with AI, per the report.
“The challenge now goes beyond identifying these capabilities to understanding how they work collaboratively in a real-life setting — and how they can be measured consistently,” Talogy said.
Navigating this problem is becoming a matter of some urgency. That’s because almost 75% U.S. company leaders said that within the next four years, nearly half their organizational systems will either be redesigned or rebuilt around AI agents, according to a recent report from global consulting firm Deloitte. However, that same report found that only 1 in 5 leaders said their company was actually prepared to redesign its business processes to run autonomously with AI agents.
In addition, many of the managers tasked with overseeing AI-driven workforces are not yet prepared for the task. A recent study from Careerminds found that many HR managers believe their companies have substantial skill gaps when it comes to artificial intelligence tool adoption, organizational change and navigating complex workplace dynamics.