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The Future of Work Supplement:
Are Employers and Workers Ready for the Future of Work?
vision, as well as retrain and reskill as many people in their teams as possible.
Building an AI-ready workforce also does not mean recruiting workers with technological skills only. The top future skills identified by business leaders include a very important soft skill needed to create new AI-led innovations – adaptability and continuous learning. AI is an ever-evolving technology and will require workers that are able to work along and adapt accordingly.
As a start, Microsoft is democratising access to AI by embedding the technology in our products. For example, intelligent technology in Outlook can help employees find the best room for a meeting based on the number of attendees, time, availability and other preferences. This reduces the number of back-and-forths between different parties just to schedule follow-up meetings.
In addition, business leaders can tap on our recently launched AI Business School to help them lead with confidence in the age of AI. Through a series of virtual masterclasses, the initiative shares insights and practical guidance from top executives on how AI can be strategically implemented.
We firmly believe that AI will augment human ingenuity and we are excited about its life-enhancing possibilities. The promise of AI is that knowledge gained from analysing the wealth of data available today will augment decision-making processes with additional intelligence, helping produce quicker and more effective outcomes.
Business leaders and workers have all the incentives to work together to lay the foundation for an AI-centric, future ready workforce. They should take the first step towards that vision today.
About the Author
Ralph Haupter is a global technology industry leader with over 25 years' of experience managing regions, functions and industry verticals. As the President of Microsoft Asia and Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft, Ralph leads a region comprising 17 subsidiaries in 42 territories and countries, over 20,000 highly-dedicated employees and more than 100,000 invaluable Microsoft partners. Ralph is passionate about empowering Asia’s digital ambitions, where he envisions a near future where AI is accessible and valuable to every individual and organisation, making us work, live and play better and smarter.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. Find out more at news.microsoft.com/apac/