Why your AI training plan might already be outdated

When executives don’t treat AI skills as an urgent priority, Rosenbaum said, organizations tend to fall back on the standard learning and development model, one that leaves employees responsible for seeking out training on their own. That approach works fine for optional development, but it falls short when an entire workforce needs to build a skill quickly.

“Organizations have largely reached a kind of compromise with workers. We’ll provide the resources, access to the LMS [learning management system] and LXP [learning experience platform], a few trainings per year, and tuition reimbursement, and you, the employee, have to take advantage of that and make of it what you will,” Rosenbaum said.

Companies rarely reward AI skill building

Rosenbaum also found that most organizations don’t build AI readiness into the systems that actually shape behavior, like performance reviews, incentives, and hiring.

“Few people said their organizations actively acknowledge and recognize AI skill development. Is this included in performance management expectations? Are there incentives tied to it?” he said.

One company took a different approach entirely, building AI readiness into who it hired rather than waiting for it to show up in reviews.