Accepting Small Businesses’ AI Skills Gap and Scaling Training
Across the private sector, there exists a shortage of people who know how to bring AI to life, which presents a strategic issue for small businesses.
“AI offers tremendous advantages around productivity,” says Wole Moses, chief artificial intelligence officer at Microsoft. “If we aren’t using those tools, there’s a risk that we are not operating optimally.”
AI-enabled platforms for continuous learning can help small businesses close the gap around AI and a host of other skills.
“Training can be based on an individual’s skills, or their abilities, or their responsibilities,” says Shane Shaneman, senior AI strategist at NVIDIA. “That curriculum can be personalized based on their performance and their goals.”
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An AI-customized curriculum meets employees where they are, rather than being one-size-fits-all.
In a personalized learning system, the AI “should be able to understand what I need to do next, based on my use of previous learning enablement modules,” Hein says. “Some of those goals might be top-down — saying ‘I need my workforce capable of doing this’ — and some of them might be self-directed.”
AI also delivers learning at scale, which is a pressing need of small businesses.
“The scale issue is in the sheer number of people that need to be trained and the sheer number of potential topics they need to be trained on, as well as the dearth of people who are available and qualified to do that training,” Moses says. “AI becomes an enabler of doing that training at scale, across all the people who need to be trained, across all those topics and at the right level of personalization.”
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Adaptive Learning Creates a Custom Curriculum
Pacing is an important feature of AI-enabled learning that helps drive efficient and effective training. “Do I need a constant drip of information?” Hein says.
Formatting is a second key feature.
“Am I going to be better served learning through video or just reading through some documentation?” Hein says. “It can adjust that for each learner, based on what they’ve been successful with in the past.’
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Another significant benefit is the ability of these platforms to deliver real-time feedback, with dynamic content that adjusts to the individual’s progress.
“The content can be adjusted based on how they’re doing at the various progress checks,” Shaneman says.
Plus, these platforms are nonjudgmental.
“You can ask the same question 10 times, and the platform won’t get annoyed,” Moses says. “It will just continue to stay on an even keel and answer your questions.”
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Continuous Learning Solutions Across Industries
For skill-building in support of career development, Goole’s Career Dreamer offers a “fun” way for employees to determine what skills they need to reach the next level, Hein says.
Career Dreamer walks the user through potential career progressions and the necessary learning. Google is working to expand similar AI-supported learning capabilities.
NVIDIA delivers the backbone that supports AI-driven learning platforms.
“It’s the AI-enabling infrastructure: chips, systems and software,” Shaneman says.
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Meanwhile, Microsoft recently launched an initiative that leverages AI-enabled training in support of workers who want to build up their own AI skills. For technologists, Microsoft Learn is an AI-enabled site that reaches across all technologies: AI, security, databases and application development.
Additionally, Microsoft’s LinkedIn Learning offers real-time insights into the most-needed job skills.
“That directly influences the training that’s offered through that site,” Moses says.
