Gartner flags demand-supply gap in recruiting AI talent
Recent findings from Gartner Inc.’s TalentNeuron data reveals that over the recent years AI talent is being recruited more in non-IT departments than in the regular IT sector. In a press release, Gartner research director Peter Krensky said that their finding points to the existing trend of analytics activity, investment and talent moving from IT to business.
The Gartner report mentions that “AI talent is often hired directly into these departments with clear use cases in mind so that data scientists and others can learn the intricacies of the specific business area and remain close to the deployment and consumption of their work”.
All in all, the trend is here to stay and will result in a sharp spike in the demand for AI talent – which, to begin with, is in perennial short supply. So, what can the IT industry do to address this potential crisis, given that AI technology will be all-pervasive in the foreseeable future?
Krensky offers a few pointers for the IT leaders and managers to consider:
- Encourage and invest in education for current staff to the extent possible. Successful data engineers and machine learning experts often hail from different roles and academic backgrounds and evolve on-the-job.
- Liaise with leaders from a variety of businesses to understand their current AI initiatives and staffing ambitions.
- Explore formalized support relationships between IT and teams producing AI assets and create an enterprise strategy for AI governance.
- Help other leaders identify ill-conceived AI projects suffering from AI talent deficit and collaborate to resolve common concerns.
