Helping companies upskill in the age of AI with new tools, free AI courses, and insights

Business leaders acknowledge that employees will need new skills to work with AI, yet only a third (38%) of US executives are helping their workforce become AI-literate, our new research finds*. 

Helping employees develop new skills is critical, given the rapid advancements and adoption of AI. The skills needed for jobs globally is projected to change by 51% by 2030 (since 2016), and the rise of generative AI will accelerate this change to 68%, according to LinkedIn data.

Providing skill and career development opportunities isn’t just a “perk”— it’s a business need, a powerful retention strategy, and key to ensuring employees have the right skills for their roles. To help organizations prioritize skill development, we’re making 250 AI courses free and rolling out new career development and internal mobility tools: 

• Free LinkedIn Learning courses on AI are available for a limited time to help professionals build in-demand skills. 250 courses across 7 languages are available; they cover topics relevant across a range of industries, job roles and levels of expertise – from building general fluency in generative AI to empowering your teams to make GAI-powered business investments.

• New career development features include Next Role Explorer – a dynamic career path visualization that recommends potential next roles to employees inside their company – and personalized Learning Plans that help learners close skills gaps to achieve their career goals.

• New internal mobility features improve employees’ visibility into open roles at their organization on LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Learning and enable them to express interest. By combining the power of our learning and hiring tools for the first time, we’re making it easier for internal hiring teams to find interested talent.

We’re also launching two new reports, the 2024 Workplace Learning Report and the 2024 Future of Recruiting Report, to help talent professionals better understand how the world of work is changing. Highlights include:

• 4 in 5 people say they want to learn more about how to use AI in their profession.

• 90% of organizations are concerned about employee retention, and providing learning opportunities is the No. 1 retention strategy.

• 62% of recruiting professionals express optimism about AI’s impact on recruitment; the number of recruiters who added AI skills to their profiles jumped 14% last year.

• Communication (77%), relationship building (72%), and adaptability (63%) are the top soft skills recruiters will need in the future.

To learn more, read these articles from our LinkedIn team:

• Dan Brodnitz, LinkedIn Learning’s Global Head of Content Strategy, highlights 250 AI courses you can take for free (for a limited time) to help you build critical AI skills.

• Jill Raines, our Director of Product Management, writes about our new career development and internal mobility features – and why we developed them.

• Jennifer Shappley, our Vice President of Talent, shares key insights from new LinkedIn research and discusses the major trends reshaping the way organizations find and develop talent.

*According to our Executive Confidence Index, a survey of ~3K executive (VP+) LinkedIn members in December 2023