Issue 7 Digital | Page 30

THE BIG DEBATE

The AI skills your business will need by 2030

As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in everyday work, knowing how to use a particular platform will not be enough. Staffordshire businesses will need people who can work effectively with AI, challenge its output and understand when human judgement must take over.

The spread of artificial intelligence will not only create demand for software developers and technical specialists. It will change the skills required across almost every part of a business.

Employees in administration, finance, marketing, customer service, manufacturing and management are increasingly likely to work alongside AI systems. The most valuable people will not necessarily be those with the deepest technical knowledge, but those who can combine an understanding of the technology with strong judgement, relevant professional experience and the ability to solve genuine workplace problems.

Staffordshire County Council’ s AI business case proposes a three-tier skills framework covering foundational AI literacy, occupational AI capability and specialist leadership skills. It also identifies the potential for a Virtual AI Skills Academy, improved careers guidance and introductory adult and community learning.

For employers, the challenge is to begin building those capabilities now.

AI literacy

Employees need a basic understanding of what artificial intelligence is, where it is already being used and what it can— and cannot— reliably do.

That does not mean everybody must understand the technology behind the systems. It means recognising when AI has contributed to a piece of work, understanding that its answers may be inaccurate or incomplete, and knowing when its use must be disclosed or reviewed.

AI literacy should become a core workplace skill, much like basic digital literacy.

Working effectively with AI

Prompting is often presented as the essential AI skill, but it is better understood as part of a wider ability to brief and manage an AI system.

Useful results depend on clear instructions, relevant context and welldefined objectives. Employees must be able to explain the task, specify the required output, provide appropriate information and improve the result through follow-up questions.

They also need to know when a quick prompt is sufficient and when a repeatable, carefully designed workflow is required.

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Quality products from

Eastern Africa

AFRICAN SPECIALITY

PRODUCTS LTD

Keele, Staffordshire aspkeele @ outlook. com

MEMBER OF STAFFORDSHIRE CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE

African Speciality Products( ASP) has for 25 years supported smallholder farmers in Eastern Africa

Our partners in the Lima Group( Southern and Western Tanzania) process and export coffee, cocoa, fresh avocados and avocado oil from the thousands of farmers in their networks. Their markets include Japan, South Africa and Europe.

The Equity for Africa Group( Mauritius, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia), of which ASP was a founder in 2003, helps farmers and other SMEs to buy the equipment they need to support more jobs and livelihoods. It offers finance leases in which the only security is the equipment itself. The equipment includes tractors, excavators, trucks and processing machinery from leading global manufacturers including Staffordshire-based JCB.

Botanical Extracts( Kenya), in which ASP is a partner, produces annatto, pyrethrum, stevia and other extracts which are exported globally from the factory outside Nairobi.

ASP also supports Café Africa, a not-for-profit network with partners in Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Café Africa works with the coffee sector in each country to help farmers improve their productivity and coffee quality. It also supports the training of young people in coffee production.

To find out more about our services, please email aspkeele @ outlook. com

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