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AI readiness: How to bridge the AI skills gap with upskilling for AI

Closing the AI skills gap is key to successful AI adoption. Learn how to boost your AI organizational readiness and empower your team with essential AI skills.

Feb 24, 2025 • 6 Minute Read

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  • Upskilling
  • Business & Leadership
  • AI & Data

90% of executives don’t completely understand their team’s AI skills and proficiency. Yet 95% believe AI initiatives will fail without staff who can effectively use AI tools.

As organizations adopt AI, their teams need the right skills to accomplish their goals and drive value with the technology. But with the AI skills gap looming, are organizations actually ready to use AI to its fullest potential? 

To learn more, we surveyed 600 tech executives and leaders from various industries across five key pillars of AI readiness:

In this article, we focus on the Skills pillar. Here’s what you can do to close the AI skills gap in your organization.

Closing the AI talent gap with an upskilling strategy

Only 23% of leaders say all of their employees have well-developed AI skills.

To build AI skills throughout your organization, you need an upskilling plan that goes beyond video platforms, self-paced content, and turning employees loose to learn on their own. You need an essential AI development strategy that works in tandem with your overarching goals.

Successful AI skill development provides a formal, centralized learning hub for employees, incorporates hands-on application, and fosters a culture of learning that spans the entire organization.

In organizations with top-notch AI upskilling:

  • AI workforce development is part of the initial planning process and budget, not added as an afterthought
  • Technical and non-technical employees learn AI skills, tools, and technologies relevant to their roles
  • Employees have the opportunity to apply new skills on the job
  • Employees have trusted learning resources and paths to follow
  • Learning is constant, not a series of one-off experiences

Why AI skills are the cornerstone of organizational readiness

75% of organizations have had to pause or delay AI projects due to a lack of AI skills.

Here’s the bottom line: If you want your AI initiatives to succeed, you need people with AI skills.

A formal program focused on upskilling for AI ensures learning aligns with your organizational objectives. Without one, teams might focus on irrelevant tools or technologies or accidentally learn outdated information. Worst case scenario? They aren’t learning at all.

How to close AI skills gaps with a workforce development strategy

Regardless of where your people’s current AI skill levels, here are some things you can do to level up your skills strategy and their AI knowledge.

Include upskilling for AI in your budget

58% of organizations build AI skill development costs into their initial budget for AI initiatives. The remaining 42% determine an AI learning budget after the fact based on need.

Skills aren’t an afterthought—they’re a critical component of AI success. Set aside budget for AI skill development from the beginning. If you invest everything in AI technology, but lack the people with the skills to use it, you won’t see ROI. A dedicated training budget ensures you can give your teams the resources they need to master AI.

If you’ve already adopted AI in some capacity, it’s never too late to reassess your budget moving forward. In fact, you should regularly re-evaluate your AI budget every quarter. How have your organization’s priorities changed? What training resources are working? What new AI skills gaps have appeared?

This allows you to reallocate your resources based on current needs and the changing AI landscape (while preventing you from getting locked in to unnecessary spend).

60% of organizations reassess their budget, staff, and learning resources for AI at least once per quarter.

Give technical and non-technical teams the skills to support AI adoption

Everyone needs AI skills, regardless of whether they’re working directly with AI models. After all, AI is now part of the tools we use every day. Non-technical employees need to understand the technology on a basic level so they can spot misinformation and deepfakes and engage with AI in a safe, secure manner.

Technical employees like developers, security professionals, and AI engineers will need advanced skills to build AI-powered systems, navigate new security risks, and develop AI models. 

But only 19% of organizations have incorporated AI skills into day-to-day work and training across all departments. 

To build AI skills throughout your organization, develop learning paths tailored to roles and skill levels.

  • Look back at your goals for AI implementation. What skills will your teams need to achieve them? 
  • Assess current skill levels with skill assessments. What skills do your teams already have? Where are they experts? Where do they have room to grow? 
  • Tailor upskilling to employee skills gaps. What resources or experience do employees need to fill their skills gaps? 

Provide hands-on learning opportunities for developing AI skills across teams

More than half of technologists say using hands-on labs and sandboxes alone or with video content is the most effective at preparing them to apply new learning on the job. 

Despite this, less than one third of organizations (31%) spend their AI budget on hands-on labs. The main ways they’re spending their AI upskilling budget? Outside trainers and consultants, AI-education tools or programs, and in-person or online classes for continuing education.

None of these are bad choices, and a variety of options helps accommodate different learning styles and preferences. But if you can, consider allocating some of your budget for immersive learning experiences.

Being able to apply new skills on the job is how tech professionals know they’ve mastered (and retained) what they’ve learned. Hands-on opportunities build their skills and their confidence. Here are some ways to get started:

  • Offer hands-on labs and sandboxes so employees can practice new skills in real-world environments. (Get tips on how to choose an online learning platform for tech skills.)
  • Create mentorships and job shadowing opportunities for employees to learn new skills from their colleagues on the job.
  • Schedule hackathons to encourage innovation and put new skills to the test in an engaging way.

Pluralsight has more than 3,500 hands-on labs to give your employees practical experience with new tech skills. Learn more about our hands-on skill development solution.

Empower your teams with an AI learning culture

82% of organizations have formal plans to share AI upskilling sessions and resources with other employees. These formalized plans foster peer-to-peer learning and allow more employees to benefit from upskilling.

If you already have formal processes to share AI learning throughout your organization, establish a community of practice for AI (similar to communities of practice for cloud computing). 

Gather in-house AI experts and enthusiasts who are passionate about the technology and bringing others on board. This community of practice will facilitate meetings, projects, and learning opportunities for people across the organization.

To cultivate a learning culture and community for AI, you can also:

  • Create learning cohorts and Slack channels for learners to ask questions and get help from each other
  • Host local or global hacking events where employees can gather and work on AI projects together
  • Start regular AI workshops, lunch and learn sessions, or expert panels

Creating scalable tech skill development can be a challenge, especially when employees come from different roles and skill levels. Pluralsight Iris can help. Our AI assistant for tech skill development can create structured learning paths for your team in moments based on the skills they need or your AI goals. Learn more about Iris.

Uncover more resources to boost your organization’s AI readiness

Amid the latest AI product announcements, it can be easy to overlook the skills that make them a success. No matter what the new trend is, your organization will need AI skill development to keep up with the ever-evolving landscape.

Learn more about how you can boost your organization’s AI maturity:

Check out these content pieces for more:

Julie Heming

Julie H.

Julie is a writer and content strategist at Pluralsight.

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