Beijing, March 26, 2024 – Artificial intelligence (AI), represented by generative AI, is becoming the most important technology driver today, and more and more industries are looking to improve quality and efficiency, accelerate transformation and innovation, and inject momentum into new quality productivity through the application of AI. Amazon Web Services today released its latest research, which shows that artificial intelligence technology is expected to be widely used in Chinese enterprises by 2028. The study also shows that Chinese companies place a high value on AI talent and are willing to offer an average of 33% higher salaries for those with relevant skills. At the same time, while both businesses and employees recognize the importance of AI, there is currently a huge talent gap with AI skills, and companies are facing challenges in recruiting and training relevant talent. In response to this demand, Amazon Web Services will launch a series of AI knowledge training courses in China to help enterprises and employees strengthen the application of AI technology and effectively improve productivity, and embrace the "AI +" era at full speed.
Amazon Web Services commissioned Access Partnership, the world's leading technology consulting firm, to interview more than 500 Chinese employers and more than 1,600 employees from different industries and sizes to conduct a study on "Accelerating AI Skills: Helping Incumbents Meet the Future of Work", and discussed the application needs and trends of AI technology in Chinese enterprises. The survey covers three main categories of employees, where technical experts are employees who are responsible for developing new technologies and applying technical expertise, technology-related employees are employees who are involved in technical products and services, and non-technical employees are employees who are not involved in advanced technical knowledge and skills.
Enterprises are accelerating the adoption of AI technologies to further enhance productivity
Ninety-seven percent of Chinese companies surveyed have adopted some AI-powered tools to varying degrees in 2023. By 2028, companies say they will be applying AI-powered tools, regardless of size. The majority of companies expect finance (93%) and business operations (93%) to be the sectors that will benefit the most from AI solutions, followed by sectors such as R&D (91%), which will benefit from the value of AI.
73% of businesses and employees agree that improving workflows is the biggest productivity benefit of AI, followed by task automation (70%). In order to boost productivity more broadly, the use of AI tools is expected to increase over the next five years, from technical experts to non-technical employees. Non-technical employees are expected to see a 1.5x increase in the use of AI tools, more than technical experts (1.2x) and technical stakeholders (1.2x), so they are also expected to see the most significant productivity gains.
Working people of all ages want to learn AI skills to accelerate their careers
Chinese companies are placing a high value on AI skills, with the study showing that Chinese companies are generally willing to pay an average of 33% more for such talent. At the same time, learning AI skills has become a common need for working people of different ages and genders to accelerate their career development. The data shows that not only Gen Z (93%), who are the rising power of the new generation, but also millennials (95%) and baby boomers (86%) who are about to reach the peak of retirement are all looking to learn AI skills to advance their careers. At the same time, both male (94%) and female (95%) employees have shown a strong interest in learning AI skills.
Although employees are interested in learning AI skills, as the technology becomes more and more widely used in the workplace, some repetitive and mechanical tasks are gradually being replaced by this technology, which also raises concerns about whether AI will replace humans. However, the study also found that, in addition to technical skills (54%), companies consider soft skills such as creative thinking (51%) and critical thinking (49%) to be the most needed competencies for employees when using AI tools in 2028.
Chinese companies are facing a severe AI talent shortage
With the rapid change of artificial intelligence technology, the industries and application scenarios it covers are constantly expanding. In order to fully unlock the potential of AI in organizational operations and business development, Chinese enterprises are increasingly in need of AI talents. The study found that more than 90% of companies surveyed ranked recruiting AI talent as a top priority. However, there is currently a huge talent gap in Chinese's artificial intelligence, with 62% of companies that regard recruiting AI talent as their top priority, saying it is difficult to recruit the AI talent they need.
In the face of external recruitment challenges, companies are also exploring the possibility of upskilling existing employees through internal training. However, there are still many difficulties in practice, with data showing that 69% of companies cite a lack of knowledge to implement AI employee training (69%) as the biggest obstacle.
In 2023, Amazon announced the launch of the "AI Ready" initiative, which aims to provide free AI skills training and educational resources to 2 million people around the world by 2025. At the 2024 Global Developer Pioneer Conference held in Shanghai recently, Maureen Lonergan, global vice president of Amazon Web Services Training and Certification, said that as part of the "AI Ready" program, Amazon Web Services will also provide a new Chinese version of the generative AI knowledge course for free in China, and invite experts in related fields to analyze the best use cases in various industries. The course is divided into two sections, "Business Application Skills" and "Technology Development Skills", which cater to different needs from beginners to technical experts. In addition, Amazon Web Services provides more digital training and face-to-face training courses on generative AI for business managers, project managers, functional department personnel, machine learning engineers, DevOps development engineers, operation and maintenance engineers, etc., to help enterprises prepare for talent transformation in the "AI+" era at full speed.
About Amazon Web Services
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been known for its technological innovation, rich services, and wide range of applications. Amazon Web Services continues to expand its portfolio of services to support virtually any workload on the cloud, and currently offers more than 240 full-featured services covering compute, storage, database, networking, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, mobile, security, hybrid cloud, media, and application development, deployment, and management, with infrastructure in 105 Availability Zones in 33 geographic regions, and announced plans to expand in Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Thailand have created 6 new regions and 18 zones. Millions of customers around the world, including fast-growing startups, large enterprises, and leading government agencies, trust Amazon Web Services to support their infrastructure, increase agility, and reduce costs. To learn more about Amazon Web Services, please visit: www.amazonaws.cn.
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王荆晶：13520932807, [email protected]