The World Economic Forum recently said generative artificial intelligence could replace 83 million jobs in the next five years within industries including tech and education under threat.
Insider talked to a vice president of a data and AI platform, a hiring expert at LinkedIn, and an entrepreneur about three strategies to upskill to AI-proof your career.
Develop your people skills
AI chatbots such as ChatGPT seek to mimic humans with their generated text, but in a LinkedIn survey of US executives in June, 92% of respondents said people skills were “more important than ever.”
Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist, told Insider that such skills, including “management, communication, customer service, leadership, and teamwork,” were more important to company leaders than AI skills.
She said she predicted these skills would remain “in demand” in the face of AI and remote work because they “can be gained from life experiences” and were transferable across industries.
“With a rise in remote and hybrid work, and now AI, the need for human connection and people skills have become more important than ever as companies are looking for talent that can step up and manage teams — no matter their environment,” she said.
Read more: Job seekers are scrambling to add new AI skills to their LinkedIn profiles as postings mentioning ChatGPT surge
Deepen your knowledge outside your area of expertise
AI chatbots have access to a large volume of information, and it can be hard for the human brain to compete.
Junta Nakai, the global vice president of Databricks, a data and AI platform, wrote for Insider in October that “successful careers will not be defined by a single hard skill” and that workers should focus on improving their “soft skills to adapt and reinvent themselves.”
He suggested workers deepen their knowledge outside their specialism.
“Take classes that your peers aren’t taking, and read books that your competitors aren’t reading,” Nakai said. “For a highly technical person, this could mean doing something uncomfortable like taking an online course on the history of Renaissance art.”
He added workers’ career trajectories would become more challenging and complicated.
“Many bumps, turns, and forks you experience while navigating your career will become ever steeper and sharper,” he wrote. “Don’t extrapolate past success. Prepare your mind to constantly look at things from new perspectives.”
Read more: The 3 skills you need to have to grow your career in the age of AI, according to Databricks VP
Learn how to write good prompts for AI chatbots
Learning how to write effective prompts is crucial to getting the most out of chatbots, which can help with mundane tasks and free up time for other ones.
Jacqueline DeStefano-Tangorra, the founder of the consulting firm Omni Business Intelligence Solutions, told Insider she used ChatGPT to generate marketing materials for LinkedIn and Upwork and while writing proposals, which has given her more time to focus on landing new clients.
Speaking in May, she said the financial impact of integrating AI was “tremendous.” She booked about $71,000 in revenue from December 2021 through March 2022. Over the same timeframe a year later, she booked contracts for about $128,000 — an 80% increase in revenue, all while saving time and money with ChatGPT.
She said learning how to become a “good prompter” was key to generating helpful responses from the chatbots.
“If you really want to generate something that is going to be useful for you, you need to do more than just write a generic sentence,” she said.
DeStefano-Tangorra said users should use “precise wording and concise language.”
Read more: A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.
