On June 28 2023, Microsoft and LinkedIn launched the AI Abilities Initiative certificates program, a library of free movies for professionals who’re newbies in generative AI. This system goals to show individuals tips on how to apply generative AI to their work.
As of December 2024, Microsoft expanded its library to kind the AI Abilities Navigator portal.
What are the Profession Necessities in Generative AI program by Microsoft and LinkedIn?
The Microsoft AI Abilities Initiative, developed with LinkedIn, consists of 5 modules. Each module features a video, and a few are supplemented with quizzes, a workbook file, or each. Finishing all 5 modules offers the learner a Skilled Certificates in Generative AI to show on LinkedIn Studying.
The content material introduced within the AI Abilities Initiative certification skews towards Microsoft’s Copilot as an alternative of its main rival, Google’s Gemini.
The Skilled Certificates on Generative AI coaching will probably be obtainable in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese language, and Japanese and will probably be free by means of 2025.
SEE: Find out how generative AI is remodeling cloud safety. (TechRepublic)
“We’ve the chance to supply foundational info to everybody, in every single place, to assist us all keep forward of the talents gaps and harness its creativity to retrieve useful info,” mentioned Naria Santa Lucia, common supervisor of digital inclusion at Microsoft, in an electronic mail to TechRepublic. “As we’re studying, the know-how is studying from us, too, and now we have the ability to form how the know-how can greatest assist us.”
SEE: 2025 was the yr of agentic AI.
The LinkedIn coaching course is a part of Microsoft’s Abilities for Jobs program, which features a coaching module for lecturers, trainers, and facilitators exploring synthetic intelligence. Be aware that a number of the materials focuses on Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI.
Generative AI expertise are amongst firms’ high three coaching priorities
Greater than 75% of firms plan to undertake AI within the subsequent 5 years, in response to the World Financial Discussion board. Coaching workers to make use of AI and massive information is the third-highest firm skills-training precedence firms plan to give attention to over this era, as highlighted within the WEF Way forward for Jobs 2023 report. That statistic contains generative AI and associated applied sciences, corresponding to machine studying, which fall underneath the identical umbrella.
The significance of AI within the office is additional underscored by Microsoft’s Could 2024 Work Pattern Index, which discovered that 75% of information employees use AI at work. Nevertheless, 53% of individuals surveyed who use AI at work fear that utilizing it makes them look replaceable.
Moreover, some employees (45%) are nonetheless involved they are going to lose their jobs to AI. Alternatively, a proportionate variety of hiring leaders (55%) say they’re involved about not having sufficient expertise to fill roles in 2025.
In final yr’s Work Pattern Index, 49% of individuals had been involved about AI making their jobs out of date. On the identical time, 70% are open to the potential of delegating some duties to AI to cut back their workloads.
To deal with these challenges and alternatives, Microsoft proposes upskilling in AI to remediate imbalances. One factor of expertise coaching considerably distinctive to generative AI is the apply of immediate engineering.
“In contrast to different enterprise software program, generative AI instruments require the person to coach the instrument itself,” mentioned Shravan Goli, chief working officer at Coursera, in an electronic mail to TechRepublic in 2023. “With out good prompts, the instrument gained’t be capable to assist workers enhance productiveness in a significant means, and rising productiveness is without doubt one of the most promising parts of generative AI for employees in the present day.”
SEE: This customizable immediate engineer hiring equipment from TechRepublic Premium
He additionally famous that generative AI expertise coaching requires moral oversight, which Coursera considers in its personal free coaching modules.
“As with every rising know-how, society continues to be navigating its broader implications and managing guardrails,” Goli mentioned. “To be able to leverage this extremely highly effective instrument whereas nonetheless guaranteeing accountable use by workers, I imagine organizations must rigorously define moral tips.”
Be aware: This story was initially revealed in 2023 and up to date for 2024.