If you work in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry or you want to, mastering AI is no longer optional. It has become essential to getting a job, keeping one, and advancing your career.
I believe we will go through three phases of AI adoption:
Fearing it and assuming it will replace us.
Realizing it’s not AI itself, but the person who understands it who poses the real competition.
Embracing AI and wondering how we ever managed without it.
Almost all jobs will eventually use AI, and new data supports that thesis.
Inside the AI Workforce Consortium report
A new report from the AI Workforce Consortium shows just how urgent this shift has become.
It found that 78% of ICT job postings in G7 industrial countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US) now expect applicants to demonstrate AI-related technical abilities. The report also notes that human qualities remain just as vital for using technology responsibly.
In the study ICT in Motion: The Next Wave of AI Integration, the consortium looked at 50 ICT positions and a set of “specialized support roles,” offering a roadmap for both emerging AI-specific jobs and the skills you’ll need to stay competitive.
The consortium, led by Cisco, includes some of the world’s largest technology firms and hiring platforms, including Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, Intel, Accenture, Cornerstone, and Eightfold AI. The report analyzed 12 months of job-posting data (July 2024 to June 2025) to illustrate how AI is reshaping economies, companies, and global labor markets.
Key findings about AI roles, skills, emerging hubs, and more
The 100-page report is packed with data, but here are the top takeaways.
Explosive growth in AI roles: AI/ML engineers (up 145%), AI risk & governance specialists (up 234%), and natural language processing engineers (up 186%).
Specialized AI skills in emerging areas: Security and multi-agent systems are also driving job growth.
Rising demand for governance expertise: The accelerating adoption of agentic AI systems is creating demand for workers who possess AI ethics and governance skills.
Shortage of qualified candidates: More jobs now require AI technical skills, but there is a critical deficit of qualified candidates in areas including large language models (LLMs) and generative AI.
Hotspots for job growth: Tech centers such as Silicon Valley (which leads with a 156% jump in AI jobs), London, and Toronto show the fastest growth.
Emerging hubs: Manchester (UK), Lyon (France), and Vancouver (Canada) are “emerging hubs” with a more than 70% rise in AI jobs.
The report also provided insights into where job growth will occur. This includes:
ICT job families: Architecture and platform roles, AI and data sciences, business and management roles, customer and support roles, cybersecurity, design and user experience, infrastructure and operations and software engineers.
Specialized support roles: Business developer, compliance officer, customer support representative, digital marketing, environmental engineer, financial analyst, learning and development specialist, legal counsel, technical project managers.
These roles combine both existing and emerging jobs, and they directly address a question I’ve been asking leaders for some time: Which new roles will AI bring into the market?
Earlier this year at the Cisco AI Summit, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon stated that AI, like all technology transitions, will eliminate some jobs, raise productivity, and create new jobs. By mapping out which jobs are growing, the report gives workers and business leaders a way to align their skills with the future.
This report describes a profound and accelerating integration of AI into the labor market. Its analysis of job requirements shows a significant rise in technical AI skills. Consequently, if you want to thrive in the age of AI, you must develop technical expertise while strengthening human skills such as collaboration and critical thinking.
Supporting AI skills development
The AI Workforce Consortium is doing more than reporting the statistics — it has developed resources to support workers and organizations as they navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Additionally, the consortium provides an AI Workforce Playbook to assist organizations in strategically aligning their workforce development with evolving business and AI objectives. One area of focus is the importance of establishing an AI-ready workforce to ensure relevance, optimize resource allocation, and facilitate effective AI implementation. The report stresses that retraining existing employees is more effective than replacing them with new hires.
To support reskilling, the group provides a database of learning recommendations designed to help individuals and organizations adapt, grow, and thrive in the face of ongoing technological change. It also created an AI Skills Glossary to standardize language across workers, educators, and employers. This shared vocabulary helps align training programs with job requirements and ensures a consistent understanding of new roles.
Recommendations from a Cisco exec
The report includes actionable recommendations to help organizations and job seekers collaborate and actively participate in this skills development journey.
Business leaders are encouraged to strengthen workforce competitiveness and foster innovation by investing in AI learning and development. The emphasis is on identifying, assessing, and continually improving real-world skills that will make workforces more adaptable and future-ready.
For professionals, the guidance is clear: cultivate human capabilities — communication, critical thinking, and collaboration — along with strong AI technical capabilities. Embedding these skills through real-world, scenario-based learning fosters problem-solving, innovation, and adaptability in fast-changing environments.
Last week, in New York, I had a chance to meet and discuss the report with Fran Katsoudas, chief people, policy & purpose officer for Cisco. I asked her when we might start to see the transition of the workforce.
“What we are seeing is that the transition of jobs will not be at the same time, and AI will not impact every role in the same way. What we have today at Cisco is several use cases, and we are building from there. The report is meant to give companies and individuals a map around some of the skills that are going to be most important moving forward,” she said.
Katsoudas also provided guidance as to how companies should operate. She said, “AI is a team sport, and what I mean by that is we have a program where we put training out. We asked for volunteers. They get trained on using AI tools, and then they go back to their organizations, and they host and facilitate discussions around, how do we use this on a day-to-day basis? How does it make us better in what we do?
“What we found was, before people went through this, 62% of people felt comfortable with AI tooling after they went through it in the 90s. This reinforces that when people can play with the tools, when they have a chance to explore and work together, they’re going to feel a lot more comfortable, and they’re going to see themselves in the future,” Katsoudas explained.
What this means for IT professionals
This year’s report makes clear that AI skills will create new opportunities, but it’s the combination of technical expertise and human capabilities that will reshape the future. For IT pros, it’s important that you do not fear AI — embrace it and use it to establish yourself as a leader now and in the future.
AI expertise is no longer just a tech-sector advantage — it’s pushing up salaries across industries from healthcare to finance. See why employers are paying a premium for these skills and what it means for the broader workforce.
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