Gartner: Strongest demand for AI talent coming from outside of IT

A new report from Gartner has argued that in the last four years the strongest demand for talent with AI skills has not come from the IT department, but instead from other business units in the organisation.

Data from Gartner’s Talent Neuron program shows that although the IT department’s need for AI talent has tripled between 2015 and 2019, the number of AI jobs posted by IT is still less than half of that stemming from other business units.

Peter Krensky, research director at Gartner, said: “High demand and tight labour markets have made candidates with AI skills highly competitive, but hiring techniques and strategies have not kept up. In the recent Gartner AI and Machine Learning Development Strategies Study, respondents ranked “skills of staff” as the No. 1 challenge or barrier to the adoption of AI and machine learning.”

Sales, marketing, customer service, finance, and R&D are the departments that are recruiting AI talent in large numbers. These business units are also using the AI talent for customer churn modelling, customer profitability analysis, customer segmentation, cross-sell and upsell recommendations, demand planning, and risk management.

A recent WhiteHat Security survey of industry professionals reveal that over half of the organisations use AI or machine learning in their security stack. According to the survey, three-quarters of respondents use an application security tool, and over 40% of those application security solutions use both AI- and human-based verification. Meanwhile, an Oracle study of 700 respondents stated that organisations adopting AI alongside other emerging technologies in finance and operations are likely to see their annual profits grow 80% faster.

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