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[title]One of the most significant shifts across a whole host of industries has been the emergence of generative AI, LLMs, and other machine learning technologies. Regardless of your field, it is likely that you’ve begun to have conversations about the role that AI is going to play in your professional lives, particularly if you are working in or around one of the many major commercial industries that are being impacted by emerging AI technologies. Learning how to work with generative AI, regardless of your current role at work, can be a great way to expand on your skillset and make yourself competitive in a host of different fields. This article will explain exactly why learning AI skills can be a productive way to spend your time and energy.
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Learn AI to get an in-demand job
Because AI is being utilized in so many different industries and is seeing such a major uptick in professional contexts, there is a high demand for AI specialists, Data Scientists, and Machine Learning Engineers who can program and train algorithms with specific relevant tasks in mind. This will require a lot of training, as well as knowledge of computer programming, but the payoffs are well worth it, as Data Scientists nationally earn an average of about $130,000 annually, with variance based on location and region (NYC and San Francisco will see higher salaries to accompany a higher cost of living). Learning data science and machine learning skills can be a gateway into a new, cutting-edge, and high-paying career field. It can also be a gateway to an in-demand career, as the BLS anticipates that jobs in the computer and informational science field will increase by about 25% over the next decade, which is more than six times the national average.
The jobs aren’t just available for skilled programmers, however. The real winners of the artificial intelligence revolution have been the consultants and associates who help companies and institutions integrate AI into their regular workflow. AI consulting firms are one of the major emerging businesses coming out of the release of publicly available AI assistants. These firms, as well as the dozens of different firms that are in the process of starting up at any given time, are always on the lookout for talented AI experts who understand how the various models can be utilized to improve clients’ output and workflow.
Build AI skills to complement your current role
While many people are running to AI training as a way to help them switch careers and start working in something completely new, that doesn’t have to be the case for upgrading your skills. You’ll be able to apply your new AI knowledge to the work you’re already doing on a daily basis in a way that streamlines the process and helps you save time. There are many different AI platforms, like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Midjourney, that are being meshed with the programs we use every day, and having the skills to utilize these tools puts you ahead of the curve.
Taking the initiative to learn cutting-edge AI skills is also a great demonstration of your adaptability to new processes. These platforms and their capabilities will only continue to grow over time, and being an employee who can navigate them (and their frequent updates) quickly will be at an advantage. Even if your role isn’t technical, seeing how AI fits into broader workflows will help you identify areas where these tools can simplify and streamline processes.
Find work in any number of industries
Unsurprisingly, one of the major fields most directly impacted by the rise of AI technology is the already data-focused financial sector. This field has rapidly adopted AI technology as a tool for streamlining the data analysis process and making financial and investment decisions based on the incomprehensible amount of data that the markets produce every day. If you are looking to start a career in or around the financial services sector, whether working for a major firm or you simply want to start up your own investment adventure, it pays to learn how to use all of the tools at your disposal, which means learning how to utilize AI tools. Learning how to utilize AI in the process of building an investment portfolio or as part of your financial career can take a lot of the guesswork out of the process, making it more likely that you will find long-term success in the industry.
AI is rapidly integrating into retail as a data collection and analysis tool, charting, tracking, and interpreting customer behavior far faster and more accurately than human beings were previously capable of. Every company that has a digital footprint wants to make use of its consumer and sales data, and AI makes that process more streamlined and less susceptible to human error. It also helps to brainstorm and initiate advertising and content-generating campaigns since they can work with hundreds of thousands of historically successful campaigns and help members of your team identify exactly what those campaigns had been successful in the past.
AI is similarly playing a role in the graphic design industry, not as a replacement for graphic designers, but as a tool for speeding up the monotonous parts of the process, cleaning up finished projects, and simplifying the process of working with complex designs. Any graphic designer hoping to have a competitive application is going to want to demonstrate to prospective employers that they understand how AI can be integrated into a design project without producing undesirable slop, particularly as more and more AI assistants are integrated directly into graphic design tools (such as Adobe’s Firefly being integrated into Adobe Creative Cloud applications).
Finally, learning AI tools can help you in virtually any field that is remotely connected to data analytics, and these range from politics and administration to nonprofits and sports. AI can speed up and ease the process of collecting, organizing, and interpreting large amounts of data, and it is essential for any analysis project that involves more data than a human being can reasonably handle on their own (like massive amounts of voter information data or samples of league-wide batting averages going back 27 years). Given the depth and breadth of the national economy and the hundreds of different industries that make it run, learning AI can be a vital tool in virtually any professional setting.