The growth of technology has transformed the consumer journey, the workplace and both the way in which we carry out and the speed of our jobs. Across the board, our day to day capabilities have changed as digital capabilities evolve.
AI is one of the most prominent technological developments that continues to storm through the digital landscape, enhancing everything it touches along the way. The way we communicate, analyse, translate and organise in the workplace (and outside of it) has already been altered and enhanced by AI, and we’re still seeing AI in its infancy!
‘76% of marketers think that marketing has changed more in the past two years than the past fifty, which means that continual upskilling is essential.’ Digital Marketing Institute
It also puts the rate of change within even just one industry into perspective; 76% more development in the last 2 years compared to the past 50!
The issue, as we know, is that as this technology evolves, so must the skills and understanding of those using and working with it. This is not, however, the case; the growth of digital skills is not keeping up with the growth we’re currently witnessing in digital.
With the skills gap at large, we’re seeing that hard skills in tech, working with AI for example, in very high demand!
The underlying concern for so many years now has been that eventually machine learning and the development of AI technology will make more and more human jobs obsolete; the jury on this is still out.
Parallel to this, we’ve been witnessing a rise in the demand for soft skills. These skills include qualities that lie more with the way we carry out tasks and our creativity, leadership, negotiation and people skills, things which can not be learned by a machine.
The answer is that really they compliment each other. While AI can help to reduce the time spent on menial tasks, research, analysis and routine tasks and gives us more time to spend on creativity and people management, the soft skills can strategise and create and take the business to the next level. These hard and soft skills are the perfect coupling for business success. As the understanding and familiarity with using the latest AI technology will continue to rank high on the list of skills in demand, so will the ability to lead, negotiate and create.
So, yes, the use of AI and the demand for soft skills can and absolutely should develop together and should be sought out, by recruiters, to work in harmony.
We are, therefore seeing a time where our skill sets are desired to be both hard and soft rich! The constant development of our personal soft skills while opting to learn new hard skills which will keep up to date with the latest technology might seem a little daunting, but it will help workplaces to move along at a similar pace to the development and introduction of technology.
