AI is transforming work—L&D must equip employees with the right skills to stay ahead. Editor Jo Cook dives into the offering from AI leading company, NVIDIA
When high school student Selin Ornek saw a guide dog assisting it’s owner, the passing of her own dog got her to thinking: “If a visually impaired person lost their dog, not only would they lose their best friend, but their eyes.” This set Selin on a pathway to build a robotic visually impaired companion – one that wasn’t limited by aging and health, and she used AI to help process visual and sound data.
Selin’s story is a powerful example of how AI can be used to solve real-world challenges, reshaping lives in the process. Innovation like this isn’t limited to technology pioneers—AI is already transforming the workplace, changing how everybody works and learns. For L&D professionals, the challenge now is ensuring that employees have the skills to keep up with this shift and play an active role in shaping the future of work
For L&D professionals, the challenge now is ensuring that employees have the skills to keep up
With the changes in the last 18 months people at work are expressing that they want greater influence over strategic decisions as workplaces undergo rapid change. However this is in a context of environmental, political and financial volatility, as well as rapid organisational change since 2020, with 73% of employees having gone through disruptive change.
AI adoption at work is massive and increasing:
- By 2030 approximately 729 million people are expected to utilise AI tools, up from 314 million today
- Over 450 million workers need upskilling by 2030
- 89% of CEOs acknowledged the strategic importance of leveraging AI for business transformation, but only 25% feel fully prepared to integrate it across their organisations
Artificial intelligence in learning and development
Josh Bersin said: “In all my years as an analyst, I’ve never seen a technology with so much potential. AI will revolutionise the L&D landscape, reinventing how we do our work so L&D professionals can spend time consulting with the business.”
AI is changing what we do and how we do it, so we need to prepare ourselves, our teams and our organisations. Just as CEO’s might not be fully prepared for AI, some Chief Learning Officers aren’t either. In L&D we might not end up creating the next AI-powered seeing eye robot dog, but we do need to know how to enable others to explore the technology for their roles.
In the “AI for all” course your team can learn fundamentals
With AI set to impact over 83% of job roles, the challenge for L&D isn’t just awareness—it’s equipping employees with the right skills to stay competitive. That’s where structured learning pathways become essential. NVIDIA’s AI Learning Essentials provides free, online courses designed to upskill employees at all levels, ensuring they are ready for AI-driven roles.
For example in the “AI for all” course your team can learn fundamentals, such as the differences between generative AI, large language models and foundation models. They can find out more detail about graphics processing unit circuits (GPUs), which are designed to execute complex instruction sets required by AI models and provide the power for growing data – an essential for AI processing.
Many L&D leaders know AI is transforming their industries but struggle with where to start in building AI capability within their teams. The free online session An AI Team Lead’s Guide: Drive Developer Teams’ Excellence at NVIDIA’s GTC conference tackles this challenge head-on, offering insights from industry experts on how to identify AI skills gaps, implement learning pathways, and drive real business impact through AI upskilling. The panel discussion, which includes speakers from Deloitte, Chaos Group, Saudi Data & AI Authority and The Danish Centre for AI Innovation, will include topics such as:
- How to spot the right skills
- How to implement the learning paths to grow the hottest skills in the market within your team and validate their knowledge
- How to interact with the wider ecosystem by learning about successful examples of national AI projects
- Click here to register for your free GTC online conference place now
As leader in your business, exploring ways to ensure your teams have the skills needed to tackle new workloads, this session is for you.
Kevin McFall, a principal instructor for the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, offered some advice for those looking to navigate a career in AI and advanced technologies but finding themselves overwhelmed or unsure of where to start. “Don’t try to do it all by yourself,” he said. “Don’t get focused on building everything from scratch — the best skill that you can have is being able to take pieces of code or inspiration from different resources and plug them together to make a whole.”
AI skills for technical teams
Digging deeper into AI is where L&D needs to put its horizon scanning into action, by providing best in class development for the teams it supports. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said that, “It started with perception AI — understanding images, words and sounds. Then generative AI — creating text, images and sound,” He added that now, we’re entering the era of “physical AI, AI that can proceed, reason, plan and act.” We need to help the teams in our companies to be able to make the most of these advances so that AI-trained employees can drive innovation, efficiency, and productivity.
At CES 2025 Jensen said that NVIDIA platform is at the heart of this transformation, enabling breakthroughs across industries, including gaming, robotics and autonomous vehicles. Whatever the industry NVIDIA is front and centre of those options.
“Our goals are to assist in upskilling workforces, sharpen the skills of qualified professionals, and enable individuals to demonstrate their proficiency”
Greg Estes
One of the key benefits of NVIDIA’s Training is its variety of offerings. With self-paced courses available anytime, anywhere, individuals can learn at their own speed and convenience. These courses cover a wide array of topics, including accelerated computing, deep learning, and generative AI, ensuring comprehensive skill development. For those seeking direct interaction with experts, instructor-led workshops offer industry-leading technical knowledge.
“Organisations in every industry need to increase their expertise in this transformative technology,” said Greg Estes, Vice President of Developer Programs at NVIDIA. “Our goals are to assist in upskilling workforces, sharpen the skills of qualified professionals, and enable individuals to demonstrate their proficiency in order to gain a competitive advantage in the job market.”
Generative AI is revolutionising industries worldwide, yet there’s a critical skills gap and need to level up employees to harness the technology more fully. On the Deep Learning Institute (DLI), NVIDIA certifications demonstrate subject matter competency and support professional career growth. The training is structured into a learning path and provides hands-on experience with industry-standard software, tools and frameworks. Participants learn to build production-quality solutions using GPU-accelerated servers in the cloud, ensuring practical, real-world expertise.
The these can also be tailored:
- The DLI offers comprehensive packages of training services designed to meet an organisation’s specific goals and learning needs
- Executive briefings to keep leadership informed about the latest advancements in AI, data science, and accelerated computing
- Enterprise-level Reporting to track progress and measure the impact of training initiatives within the organisation
- Customised learning paths to address specific skill gaps or technology adoption goals
L&D leading the way with AI development options
To stay ahead in a rapidly evolving workplace, L&D professionals must take the lead in equipping their workforce with AI skills. By leveraging resources like NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute and attending the free online session from the GTC conference, L&D teams can gain the insights and tools needed to build AI capability within their organisations.
Whether through self-paced courses, instructor-led workshops, or strategic training programmes, these opportunities help businesses to upskill their developer teams who are building the AI systems, services and products so they can make these AI products best in class by using the latest knowledge and technology. Ensure professionals are prepared for the future of work and take action today—explore the Deep Learning Institute and secure your place at the GTC session to drive AI skills development in your organisation.
Your L&D actions
- Virtual free session about AI skills development on 20 March 10am UK time, part of the GTC Conference
- Free AI upskilling through NVIDIA AI Learning Essentials and NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute free courses
- Learning paths for AI (and all roles and topics)
- The NVIDIA Training for organizations
