AI experts are in short supply. That's making the skills crisis worse

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IBM is cconcered about the slow progress being made in some countries' adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which could prevent them from solving some of society's toughest challenges.

A study by IBM concluded that the UK is falling behind its European neighbours in AI adoption, with employers blaming a lack of skills in areas like software engineering, problem solving, and knowledge of programming languages.

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If UK businesses aren't able to speed up their adoption of AI-like technologies, such as machine learning and automation, companies will find it difficult to achieve their ambitious goals for sustainability, IBM warned.

In a somewhat Inception-style twist, the lack of AI-ready skills also means businesses can't harness AI tech to solve the shortage of labour and skills they are already facing.

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Just over 40% of UK companies surveyed by IBM said they plan to use AI to retrain their workforce – the second-highest priority for AI investment after research & development – while 59% plan to use automation tools to reduce manual or repetitive tasks.

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