“The AI talent war is not just a Silicon Valley problem; it’s a global one. Every country, every company is fighting for the same scarce resource.”
– Fei-Fei Li, Stanford professor and co-director of the Stanford AI Lab
The scarcest resource for successful GenAI adoption isn’t time, or funding, it’s experienced practitioners and high-performing talent… This is complex stuff to scale, with lots of areas that aren’t quite ready for ‘prime time’ yet. Organizations will need to invest in developing, attracting, and partnering with trusted 3rd parties to move at pace across their GenAI adoption efforts. They’ll also need to design, implement and scale a wide range of new and evolved capabilities. Here are some things you should keep in mind as you work to address your foundational GenAI talent and capability needs.
Very few organizations have enough GenAI talent…
With the exception of OpenAI and a few pure-play start-ups, organizations have a massive shortage in GenAI expertise and capacity. For context, think of the challenges attracting and retaining high-level Data Scientists over the past decade. The talent gap for GenAI will be much more pronounced, as companies around the world and across industries will be scrambling to close talent gaps in LLM Training, GenAI User Experience design, Secure & Responsible AI, GenAI Architecture – the list goes on…
You’ll need to act holistically to solve your talent gap
To address your talent needs, you’ll need to take a multi-pronged approach that includes internal talent development, aggressive talent attraction, and targeted 3rd party engagement to close gaps where you need to move at pace. The reality, though, is you won’t be alone, as nearly every company will be working to close similar gaps in 2024.
You’re unlikely to solve all of your needs internally, and the competition for external talent will be intense in 2024
Regardless of your talent development strategy, there’s a fairly significant learning curve to understanding and being able to apply GenAI. Applied skill development curriculums, with hands-on Proof of Concept labs will be a must, but internalizing these new capabilities will take time. Most companies will need to attract new talent to accelerate their GenAI adoption efforts. That is likely to be ‘easier said than done’ in 2024, though, as the war for talent will be intense. Most companies will look to 3rd party support where they can’t close talent gaps internally or via talent attraction efforts. Make sure whoever you choose to partner with brings an enablement focus to their support, where knowledge transfer and internal coaching is a core part of the value they’re delivering.
You’ll also need to ‘lean-in’ on Capability design and development
Success with GenAI will require a wide range of new and evolved institutional capabilities, including LLM Architecture, LLM Monitoring, Secure and Responsible AI, etc. As an example, we’ve not previously had to ensure our systems didn’t ‘Hallucinate’… With non-deterministic GenAI solutions, that’s now a core priority for enterprise-quality solutions. As a result, quickly identifying those capabilities that either need to be created, or need to be evolved in key ways, will be a ‘Key to Winning’ with GenAI.
Prototype new capabilities before scaling, and avoid ‘big bang’ approaches
You’ll want to take a page out of Lean & Agile best practices when designing and operationalizing your new GenAI-focused capabilities. Start small, with a clear hypothesis, and embrace fast-cycle, iterative design, test, and refine approaches. There will be a lot of ‘learnings’ along the way, and likely more than a few ‘rework’ cycles as best practices rapidly evolve. You’ll need to carefully prioritize which capabilities you tackle, in which order, and avoid ‘big bang’ approaches to minimize risks along the GenAI adoption journey.
What We’re Seeing in Practice
- Growing awareness of the emerging talent and skills gap: Having faced similar challenges associated with Data Science and Digital Transformation trends, many leaders know (or at least suspect) they have a talent gap when it comes to GenAI. In fact, 68% of executives surveyed by Deloitte reported a ‘moderate to extreme gap in AI skills’.1
- Talent & HR leads feeling ‘a little overwhelmed’: Many of the stakeholders responsible for ensuring their organization has the GenAI talent to ‘win’ are struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving pace of innovation, and the associated talent enablement needs. The rest of their work hasn’t gone away, but they find themselves with a highly-visible ‘burning platform’ in 2024.
- ‘Self-directed’ learning journeys are falling far short of expectations: Many leaders we’ve spoken to have pointed to the various resources available on-line and encouraged their teams to ‘invest in their personal development’. Unfortunately, this rarely works, as team members are juggling intense delivery expectations and struggling to wrap their heads around what is generally a fairly steep learning curve.
- An underappreciation of the scope of capability impacts related to GenAI adoption: This issue has the potential to be one of the most unpleasant ‘surprises’ of 2024, as leaders begin to understand the scope of new and evolved capabilities needed to successfully and responsibly leverage GenAI. From Security, to Customer Support and from Digital Marketing to Legal Indemnification, GenAI is going to drive foundational change across virtually every area of your business.
- Insufficient capacity being allocated for either GenAI-related talent or capability development in 2024: Where leaders have under-scoped the range of GenAI-related capability needs, there is virtually always a significant delta between allocated and needed capacity. That’s going to have significant implications for both the success and pace of GenAI adoption in 2024, as well as potential implications to existing strategic roadmaps and commitments.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Unless you work for a ‘Unicorn’ and have GenAI talent queued up around the block to work for you, you’re going to have to be creative and a little ‘scrappy’ in 2024. The same holds true for addressing GenAI-related capability needs. The key takeaway, though, is to start now… Both areas will require a fair amount of runway to solve, and the ‘cost of delay’ for those slow to respond will be cumulative and significant.
This is the third blog of an integrated ‘Keys to Winning with GenAI’ series. Please click below to explore the remaining ‘deeper dive’ topics.
- Building and Sustaining Momentum for your GenAI Adoption Efforts
- Streamlining GenAI Innovation and Solution Delivery
- Developing a ‘GPS’ for Your GenAI Journey
Previous Blogs in the series:
- Accelerated Innovations ‘Keys to Winning’ with GenAI
- Defining a Compelling GenAI ‘True North’ for Your Business
To learn more about how Accelerated Innovation can help your company develop their GenAI vision and get started on their journey, Contact us to set up a phone call.
1 Deloitte Insights – Talent and Workforce Effects in the Age of A
