On June 28 2023, Microsoft and LinkedIn launched the AI Skills Initiative certificates program, a library of free movies for professionals who’re learners in generative AI. This system goals to show contributors learn how to apply generative AI to their work.
As of December 2024, Microsoft expanded its library to type the AI Skills Navigator portal.
What are the Profession Necessities in Generative AI program by Microsoft and LinkedIn?
The Microsoft AI Expertise Initiative, developed with LinkedIn, consists of 5 modules. Each module features a video, and a few are supplemented with quizzes, a workbook file, or each. Finishing all 5 modules provides the learner a Skilled Certificates in Generative AI to show on LinkedIn Studying.
The content material offered within the AI Expertise Initiative certification skews towards Microsoft’s Copilot as a substitute of its main rival, Google’s Gemini.
The Skilled Certificates on Generative AI coaching will probably be accessible in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese language, and Japanese and will probably be free by means of 2025.
SEE: Learn the way generative AI is reworking cloud safety. (TechRepublic)
“We’ve the chance to offer foundational data to everybody, all over the place, to assist us all keep forward of the abilities gaps and harness its creativity to retrieve useful data,” mentioned Naria Santa Lucia, common supervisor of digital inclusion at Microsoft, in an e mail to TechRepublic. “As we’re studying, the know-how is studying from us, too, and now we have the ability to form how the know-how can finest help us.”
SEE: 2025 was the yr of agentic AI.
The LinkedIn coaching course is a part of Microsoft’s Expertise for Jobs program, which features a training module for academics, trainers, and facilitators exploring synthetic intelligence. Notice that a few of the materials focuses on Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI.
Generative AI abilities are amongst firms’ high three coaching priorities
Greater than 75% of firms plan to undertake AI within the subsequent 5 years, based on the World Financial Discussion board. Coaching workers to make use of AI and massive knowledge is the third-highest firm skills-training precedence firms plan to deal with over this era, as highlighted within the WEF Future of Jobs 2023 report. That statistic consists of generative AI and associated applied sciences, resembling machine studying, which fall underneath the identical umbrella.
The significance of AI within the office is additional underscored by Microsoft’s May 2024 Work Trend Index, which found that 75% of information employees use AI at work. Nonetheless, 53% of individuals surveyed who use AI at work fear that utilizing it makes them look replaceable.
Moreover, some employees (45%) are nonetheless involved they’ll lose their jobs to AI. Alternatively, a proportionate variety of hiring leaders (55%) say they’re involved about not having sufficient expertise to fill roles in 2025.
In final yr’s Work Development Index, 49% of individuals had been involved about AI making their jobs out of date. On the identical time, 70% are open to the opportunity of delegating some duties to AI to cut back their workloads.
To handle these challenges and alternatives, Microsoft proposes upskilling in AI to remediate imbalances. One component of abilities coaching considerably distinctive to generative AI is the apply of immediate engineering.
“In contrast to different enterprise software program, generative AI instruments require the person to coach the software itself,” mentioned Shravan Goli, chief working officer at Coursera, in an e mail to TechRepublic in 2023. “With out good prompts, the software gained’t be capable of assist workers increase productiveness in a significant approach, and rising productiveness is among the most promising parts of generative AI for employees in the present day.”
SEE: This customizable immediate engineer hiring package from TechRepublic Premium
He additionally famous that generative AI abilities coaching requires moral oversight, which Coursera considers in its personal free training modules.
“As with every rising know-how, society remains to be navigating its broader implications and managing guardrails,” Goli mentioned. “So as to leverage this extremely highly effective software whereas nonetheless guaranteeing accountable use by workers, I consider organizations have to rigorously define moral tips.”
Notice: This story was initially revealed in 2023 and up to date for 2024.