Featuring:

Fiona Mark, Principal Analyst, and Betsy Summers, Principal Analyst

Shownotes:

Are you looking for AI talent in your tech organization? Well, get in line. Nearly every tech org is scrambling to find tech workers with AI skills. But the increased demand for tech talent driven by AI could also be solved, in part, by AI. In this episode, Principal Analysts Fiona Mark and Betsy Summers discuss the complicated impact that AI is having on technology organizations.

The episode starts with a quick level-set of the current tech talent market. Mark points out that, despite some of the headlines you see, tech industry layoffs peaked in January 2023 while demand for new and emerging tech skills has continued to skyrocket. “For the tech leader, they haven’t had any reprieve” in their search for the right talent, she says. “The roles that were difficult to find are still difficult to fill,” including skills around AI, automation, and other emerging tech roles.

This ongoing talent crisis has led to some creative strategies for sourcing the right tech talent, says Summers. The old-school recruiting practice of posting a job and waiting for a flood of resumes just isn’t realistic in today’s market, so more tech orgs are looking into partnerships with educational institutions and leveraging on-demand and gig workers to find those with the skills required to work with AI, such as critical thinking and empathy.

But Summers points out that AI is not only causing the increased demand for unique tech skills but is also being leveraged as a solution to tech talent shortages. For starters, AI can be helpful in identifying internal talent who might help support key capabilities. But before you start piloting the latest AI tools, Mark says it’s key to understand what capabilities are most valuable to the organization and then examine how the various AI and automation technologies can help support those capabilities.

While there is still a lot of discussion around AI displacing workers, tech employees such as developers report positive feedback in working with AI tools like TuringBots that not only improve productivity but also allow for more strategic and innovative work that has been on the back burner. “The tech org has been using these technologies a long time and [has] a much deeper understanding, both of their potential … and the potential risks of them, as well,” Mark says.

To hear more on this topic from these two analysts, be sure to check out the agenda for Forrester’s upcoming Technology & Innovation North America event. Summers will present a keynote entitled “Hyperscale Your Talent Engine,” and Mark will give a presentation entitled “Getting Your Team’s Skills Ready For The Future.”