And because finding such experts can be arduous, companies want every expert they encounter to also be able to develop AI workshops and courses for other, less skilled workers.
Competition is fierce, with companies offering salary increases of 40% to attract AI specialists with five to six years of experience in product companies. Sectors such as IT, banking, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, telecommunications and insurance are at the forefront of the search for AI talent, underlined by the rapid adoption of AI across industries.
“We are looking for AI experts with six years of experience working for clients in the financial services industry. Companies are ready to pay ₹40 lakh for them, which is more than what a middle manager gets in these banks,” said Upasana Agarwal, partner, professional and financial services at ABC Consultants, an executive search and talent consultancy firm.
“Their role will include working with banking industry leaders to train junior staff on artificial intelligence modules.”
According to Vijay Sivaram, CEO of Quess IT Staffing, the number of job positions for engineers with AI skills has increased by 30-35% across sectors over the last year and a half.
Is this all just noise?
Recruiters say some of the growing demand for AI-skilled workers may be due to market noise.
“Immediately after the pandemic, full-stack engineers who were just graduates saw their salaries skyrocket ₹8 lakh to ₹25 lakhs. There is a similar demand growing in AI today as all companies across sectors want to have AI-skilled employees on board,” said Satish Manne, partner at recruiting firm Xpheno.
According to him, non-IT companies operating in the field of digital content are ready to offer the same ₹60 lakh for AI professionals with four-five years of work experience.
That said, it’s challenging to find employees who are trained in AI and also have experience in data analysis, coding, and product management.
Manne said another key criterion is the need to understand the complexities of “ethics” in AI. Understanding ethics in AI requires recognizing the implications of cues for outcomes that go beyond mere data.
IT is leading the growth in AI training
The demand for artificial intelligence training is particularly high in the IT sector, which is one of the largest consumers of digital skills. The industry, investing significant resources in training modules, expects to improve financial results thanks to improving qualifications.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies, which create content in the form of text, images and audio, are expected to significantly augment productivity.
“Developer productivity could augment by 30-40% as they could spend more time reviewing and editing code and less time writing code with GenAI,” said Apurva Prasad, vice president of institutional capital at brokerage HDFC Securities.
India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, in its recently released annual report 2023-24 highlighted that each business group was developing domain-specific AI/GenAI offerings relevant to the industry value chain.
“In FY2024, more than 300,000 employees have been trained in GenAI technology. TCS products and services are also enhanced with artificial intelligence capabilities,” the company said.
Rival Infosys highlighted the forceful driving force behind its AI projects during a call with analysts after announcing its March earnings results.
“We are working on projects in software engineering, process optimization, customer service, consulting services and sales,” said Salil Parekh, CEO and managing director of Infosys.
These statements highlight how companies are increasing their AI capabilities to avoid losing customers.
“It is still early days for GenAI for the IT sector as employees are trained on the core modules. Deeper skill training will be based on economic benefits as GenAI PoCs move to the production stage,” said Prasad of HDFC Securities.
He added that the demand for artificial intelligence experts is “10 times greater” than the surge in demand for data scientists seen a decade ago.
Rush for AI courses
The majority of the workforce in all sectors receives training through online courses. Platforms like Coursera have seen a dramatic augment in enrollment in AI courses. The edtech platform has enrolled 600,000 students in the GenAI course since the beginning of 2023.
“We have already launched 75 AI courses this year and 125 in the second half of last year. We are reaching out to companies and universities that have created initial courses to get more,” said Raghav Gupta, managing director of Coursera for India and APAC.
Top Coursera partners offering generative AI modules include Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Fractal Analytics, Microsoft, IBM, and Vanderbilt University.
Posted: May 15, 2024 06:30 EST
