If you’re in the job market and seeking new employment, you might have noticed the job boards showing an increasing number of positions that seek AI skills or writing jobs to train AI. This isn’t a fluke related to your Google searches or what’s hot in the media—job listings for AI skills have spiked significantly.
Recently, Business Insider noted an analysis from job search engine Adzuna, which advertised 7.8 million job vacancies in the US in May 2023. Among those millions of vacancies, ads citing generative AI grew to 1,496 by the end of the month, compared to just 185 job listings in January 2023 and just three in May 2022.
At the time of being published, a quick search on LinkedIn revealed 1,530 listings related to generative AI.
A number of large tech companies and AI startups have been releasing AI-powered chatbots and image generators, leading to adoption by companies and consumers alike. At least 49 listed US companies have mentioned ChatGPT in quarterly earnings calls in May 2023, according to Insider’s analysis of Seeking Alpha transcripts. For consumers, products like ChatGPT have been made publicly available and are easy enough to use.
Bringing more generative AI talent into the business
While we watched software and hardware company, Apple, introduce a new generation of VR headsets at WWD23, another development from the Silicon Valley tech giant is the increased number of job ads posted to its company career page.
TechCrunch noted that Apple is looking for machine learning specialists and that some jobs seem to cover the same role or call for multiple applicants. While it’s no shock that Apple would eventually dip its toes into the generative AI pool—despite initial trepidation—hiring more generative AI experts could serve both it’s own technology development, but also support applications for customers that come from companies like OpenAI.
According to a report from McKinsey, companies are increasingly hiring directly from bootcamps and training academies, regional technology companies and professional organizations.
“As employers, we have to think creatively about how we find talent and develop a meaningful apprenticeship journey to help them develop skills as role requirements change, which can be as frequently as every six months,” Helen Mayhew, a McKinsey partner and leader of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, said in the report.
Jobs created by generative AI
The kinds of roles created by AI include those that haven’t existed until recently. Roles like prompt engineers and AI trainers are just a couple examples of the roles created by the emerging technology.
To be a prompt engineer, a comprehensive understanding of generative AI isn’t entirely necessary either. The role requires one to compose effective strings of text that help train the AI and deliver exact results. Additionally, it’s a position that isn’t exclusive to IT companies. Law firms, customer support and publishing companies can all use prompt engineers to help automate parts of their business.
AI auditors are also coming into demand to ensure output from an AI is accurate and unbiased, while similarly, AI ethicists ensure that generative AI is used in a safe and ethical manner.
More technical roles, such as machine managers, are also emerging alongside other generative AI-related roles. Machine managers will be key to the future of generative AI as actual machines will need to learn how to work with AI instructions. They will be necessary for overseeing AI-operated hardware and systems.
Impact on jobs and a roadmap to the future
It’s difficult to discuss the increase in generative AI job listings without noting the jobs that companies expect to disappear.
Analysis from Goldman Sachs researchers have predicted that generative AI could lead to “significant upheaval” in the labor market and impact 300 million jobs globally. The technology has been championed as a tool to enhance some roles, but others fear the technology will phase employees out of the workforce.
However, that same Goldman Sachs report also says that “worker displacement from automation has historically been offset by creation of new jobs” and that 63% of current roles would be complemented by AI.
For now, generative AI job creation versus job displacement will be a significant trend in IT to track because despite the number of positions being listed, there is still an AI skills shortage that needs to be addressed.
HCLTech CEO & Managing Director C. Vijayakumar has said that one billion roles will need to be reskilled to deal with the AI skills shortage, which is important for the roles generative AI has created that do require actual AI knowledge. Upskilling programs committed to closing the AI skills gap, like HCLTech’s TechBee program, teach students new technologies and skills to adapt to the shifting landscape.
Further, HCLTech’s understanding of the impact of generative AI on the workforce and foresight has led to the creation of HCLTech’s GenAI Center of Excellence (CoE), in collaboration with Google. The CoE provides a creative environment to develop generative AI innovations. Additionally, it comes with the commitment to make a difference for HCLTech customers, partners and associates leveraging responsible generative AI.
