On June 28, 2023, Microsoft and LinkedIn launched the AI Skills Initiative certification program, a free library video for professionals new to generative synthetic intelligence. The program goals to show members find out how to apply generative synthetic intelligence to their work.
As of December 2024, Microsoft has expanded its library to type the AI Skills Navigator portal.
What are the Career Essentials in Microsoft and LinkedIn’s Generative AI program?
The Microsoft AI Skills Initiative, developed with LinkedIn, consists of 5 modules. Each module features a video, and a few are built-in with quizzes, a workbook file, or each. Completion of all 5 modules awards the scholar an expert certificates in generative synthetic intelligence to view on LinkedIn Learning.
The content material offered within the AI Skills Initiative certification leans in the direction of Microsoft’s Copilot reasonably than its most important rival, Google’s Gemini.
The Generative AI Training Professional Certificate can be accessible in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese and can be free till 2025.
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“We have a chance to supply essential info to everybody, in every single place, to assist us keep forward of expertise gaps and leverage creativity to uncover actionable insights,” mentioned Naria Santa Lucia, basic supervisor of digital inclusion at Microsoft, in an e-mail to TechRepublic. “As we’re studying, expertise can also be studying from us, and we have now the facility to outline how expertise can greatest assist us.”
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The LinkedIn coaching course is a part of Microsoft’s Skills for Jobs program, which features a training module for lecturers, trainers and facilitators exploring synthetic intelligence. Please notice that a number of the materials focuses on Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI.
Generative AI expertise are among the many prime three coaching priorities of firms
According to the World Economic Forum, greater than 75% of firms plan to undertake synthetic intelligence within the subsequent 5 years. Training staff in the usage of synthetic intelligence and large knowledge is the third enterprise precedence when it comes to expertise coaching that firms need to deal with throughout this era, as highlighted within the report WEF Future of Work Report 2023. This statistic consists of generative synthetic intelligence and associated applied sciences, equivalent to machine studying, which fall below the identical umbrella.
The significance of synthetic intelligence within the office is additional highlighted by Microsoft’s May 2024 Job Trends Index, which noted that 75% of information staff use AI at work. However, 53% of respondents who use AI at work fear that its use will make them appear replaceable.
Additionally, some staff (45%) are nonetheless anxious about dropping their jobs to AI. On the opposite hand, a proportional variety of hiring managers (55%) say they’re anxious they will not have sufficient expertise to fill roles in 2025.
In final yr’s Work Trend Index, 49% of individuals have been anxious that AI would make their jobs out of date. At the identical time, 70% are open to the potential of delegating some duties to AI to cut back their workloads.
To tackle these challenges and alternatives, Microsoft proposes upskilling in AI to right the imbalances. One component of expertise coaching that’s considerably distinctive to generative AI is the follow of immediate engineering.
“Unlike different enterprise software program, generative AI instruments require the person to coach the instrument itself,” mentioned Shravan Goli, chief working officer of Coursera, in an e-mail to TechRepublic in 2023. “Without good recommendations , the instrument won’t be able to assist staff considerably improve productiveness, and growing productiveness is likely one of the most promising parts of generative AI for immediately’s staff.”
SEE: This customizable well timed engineer hiring equipment from TechRepublic Premium
He additionally famous that generative AI expertise coaching requires moral oversight, which Coursera considers to be its personal free training modules.
“As with any rising expertise, society remains to be exploring its broader implications and managing guardrails,” Goli mentioned. “To leverage this extremely highly effective instrument whereas guaranteeing accountable use by staff, I imagine organizations must fastidiously define moral pointers.”
Note: This story was initially printed in 2023 and up to date for 2024.
