74% of IT professionals believe that advancements in AI will render their skills irrelevant
The skillset of the IT industry is expected to undergo a paradigm shift, as intimated by a Pluralsight study conducted among executives and IT personnel.
This is a transformation which has been met with arguments as well as dialogue — particularly within the technological space. Every organization – as well as every IT professional – must to get ready for the cannibalization of the labor market by seeking for IT jobs; how those job descriptions will change in the future when AI is omnipresent, as well as what technology and analytical skills will be required after in order to function effectively.
Advancements in AI
Pluralsight, an organization that offers online courses has revealed results of a research it conducted on the attitudes of 1200 executives and IT professionals in the USA and UK towards the increasing adoption of AI and its implications on skills and job structure.
For IT pros, fear of being left behind is top of mind, as 74% of IT professionals expressed worry that AI tools will make “many of their day-to-day skills obsolete.” Moreover, 69% of IT pros believe they are at risk of being replaced by AI.
The optimism runs high in the industry towards the ability of AI to enhance job performance and promote efficiency but then again 35% of executives out of the surveyed are intending to include the use of AI systems and technologies in oorders “to get rid of excess personnel”.
This has not, however, gone unnoticed by IT workers, with 96% claiming they are making ‘keeping up with AI skills’ a priority to enhance job security.
‘The ability to utilise generative AI has increased faster than organizations’ ability to adapt and develop in response to that growth,’ said Gartner analyst Whit Andrews, identifying one of the key problems – that AI is changing the skills and the types of jobs within an organization to be able to adopt the technology.
On the other hand, while it is clear to IT professionals as well as C level executives that AI will change the nature of IT jobs, many businesses have no such clear vision about the way forward for them. The survey found that almost all 90% executives claim that “they somewhat comprehend the AI level and capabilities of their teams.” This means that if there is a gap in such insights, the organizations will not be able to implement any upskilling and reskilling processes effectively to address the need for AI skills which is continuously on the rise.
However, regardless of the massive wave of disillusionment that AI has brought, IT practitioners are still optimistic regarding their upskilling and learning of new generative AI skill sets. According to the survey, 81% of IT specialists maintained that they “feel confident” of being able to use AI in their current jobs, however, only 12% of them claimed that they have “a lot of experience dealing with AI.”
What unites IT specialists (94%) and executives (95%) is the belief that AI initiatives will go “down the drain without people that can utilize these initiatives.” For instance, such workers will be expected to know about generative AI prompts and how to appropriately use them in AI tools in order to achieve the desired effects.
“When new generations of AIs come through there will be somebody who knows for example — how to craft input into AI generations, how to follow up, how to apply the content that AI has already made and change it, how to keep that content accessible so that it does or does not go to waste, and how this whole process makes sense — I think someone with such abilities will be priceless in the coming few years,” said Andrews of Gartner.
