How AI is Reshaping Skills, Hiring, and Education
episode
Where AI Works: Conversations at the Intersection of AI and Industry
33 min
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the Wharton‑Accenture Skills Index and why does it matter?
Every time I speak, the number one question anybody asks me is what should my child be studying? And I'll tell you, the WASX, the Warten eccentric skills index, provides an empirically based answer to that question.
We are ingrained to think about roles and titles. So this notion of just even at a basic level thinking about skills and specifically the skill evolution for your business. What skills you have today may not be the skills you need for the future and how are you embarking on that journey?
Hello, and welcome to season five of Where AI Works: Conversations at the Intersection of AI and Industry. Brought to you by Wharton in collaboration with Accenture. My name is Matthew Bidwell. I'm a professor of management, the faculty co-director of the Wharton People Analytics Initiative, and faculty director of Wharton's CHRO program. It's my pleasure to be your host for this season of the podcast, as we tackle the big questions shaping AI's role in the world of business today and into the future. It's our goal to cut through the noise, to deliver actionable insights for business leaders, by combining cutting-edge research with real-world case studies. Things are changing fast, so let's get started.
On this season's premiere episode, I'm excited to tackle a topic that's top of mind for a lot of business leaders right now. How artificial intelligence is transforming skill demand, hiring practice, workforce preparation. The labor market is changing fast. Faster than employers, workers, and yes, even us educators can keep up. Job titles, they don't really reflect how work's getting done, as AI is accelerating the shift towards a skills based economy. That's exposing a growing gap between what workers claim they can do and what organisations truly value. Wharton recently teamed up with Accenture to study this in detail. And the result is what we call the Wharton Accenture Skills Index. It's a recurring empirical benchmark designed to measure which skills are oversupplied or undersupplied, and how AI is reshaping the demand for skills over time.
How, indeed, these patterns also vary across industries and roles. So to learn more about this report and discuss the findings in greater detail, it's my pleasure to introduce two of the leaders who are behind it. James Crowley is Global Products Industry Practices Chair at Accenture, as well as a member of the company's Global Management Committee. Eric Bradlow, my colleague, is Vice Dean of AI and Analytics and Chair of the Marketing Department here at Wharton. James, Eric, welcome both to Where AI Works.
Thank you, Matthew. Thank you.
So before we dive into the report, I was wondering if you could just share a little bit about yourselves and how you're thinking about AI these days. Uh James, why don't you go first?
Sure, happy to jump in. So, first of all, relative to who I am at Accenture, I lead our products industries globally. That includes um a set of three industries our life sciences industries, our industrial industries, and our consumer industries. From my perspective, this is an exciting time for our clients, their businesses, and employees. And I'm excited to talk about the skills index from from the perspective of what we see going on in the industry. There's a lot. One of our big messages is that AI and the dominant value from AI will come from driving growth, uh, not just productivity. Recently, uh, we talked to a number of C-suite leaders and almost 78% of them believe AI is going to be most important in growth.
What that really translates into is that we need AI impacting core KPIs, not just uh productivity metrics. At the same time, I would just say that that scaling AI and using AI broadly is is not easy. It's hard. And there's different pinch points and bottlenecks and working through those is really important, whether that's adoption and employee adoption or even the data foundation. So we're excited about the opportunity, but it's not without, you know, the hurdles of change, uh, as with anything, and that's what we're focused on.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Wharton‑Accenture Skills Index and why does it matter?
0:01–4:44
2
How did James Crowley build the index using 150 million worker profiles and 100 million job postings?
4:44–9:10
3
Why does Eric Bradlow say AI should be viewed as a learning accelerator rather than a knowledge checkpoint?
9:10–13:35
4
What does the research reveal about the shift from generalist to specialized, judgment‑driven skills?
13:35–17:35
5
How can organizations create a taxonomy to map current, needed, and future skills?
17:35–21:52
6
Which skills are currently oversupplied and which are in critical shortage according to the index?
21:52–25:32
7
What practical steps should employers take to embed skill‑based hiring, learning, and reward systems?
25:32–29:36
8
How will AI‑native younger workers reshape talent strategy and close the skills gap?
29:36–33:32