How to win the AI race with the right talent strategy

AI strategy without a matching talent strategy is like buying a race car without training a driver, writes Gerhard Schweinitz.

Rapidly evolving AI technology is making it difficult for many enterprise HR teams to keep up with their organisation’s AI ambitions. Hiring the right talent at the pace required to be at the forefront of AI is becoming an increasing challenge.

However, for organisations to achieve greater measurable business outcomes with AI, their people must know how to maximise its benefits and implement it effectively and safely. To win the AI race, it’s crucial that organisations prioritise the people element and ensure their talent planning is in sync with their AI strategy.

Roles changing from task doers to problem solvers

AI can handle routine, repetitive, or highly structured tasks, but humans are still necessary for thought leadership, strategy, creativity, and critical thinking. As AI capabilities increase, employees must shift from doing tasks to designing or overseeing how they’re done. By collaborating with AI tools, they will achieve business outcomes more efficiently.

For technical teams, co-delivering with AI favours senior engineers who can architect and vet AI-generated solutions. Low-skilled engineers who lack architectural skills are more likely to be impacted by AI; however, great tech talent will still be in high demand.

Upskilling over replacement

AI replacing humans is a myopic thought process; most companies can’t afford to lose the domain knowledge, experience, and expertise that employees bring. There is also an adverse cultural impact of losing key employees.

Upskilling and training are fundamental for end-to-end AI transformation. At V2 AI, we have helped several customers upskill by co-delivering on an AI project together. Our dual delivery and upskill approach ensures that customers can be confident that AI will be implemented correctly and their teams will receive the appropriate training along the way. This is an excellent option for enterprises still building their AI capabilities.

However, AI-readiness isn’t a one-off project; it’s a mindset shift. As AI evolves, organisations must foster a culture where experimenting and “failing fast” is encouraged. Time freed up by AI usage can support personal and organisational development.

HR and learning and development teams should lead the charge, not as compliance officers, but as enablers. This includes incentivising learning, embedding microlearning into workflows, and recognising those who take initiative.

Hiring adaptive, dynamic, and data-savvy talent

Organisations need to be more forward-thinking in their recruitment efforts. Hiring for adaptability, problem solving, and learning agility is more important than ever. For example, interviews could include role simulations or practical tasks, rather than relying solely on traditional methods.

AI systems will democratise data access in the organisation. Anyone will soon be able to have natural language conversations with enterprise data and discover what they need.

Hence, hiring in the age of AI should emphasise hybrid skill sets: data literacy, domain knowledge, and product thinking. Employees with a product mindset can align business, tech, and customer goals, analyse data, and take data-driven actions. What this looks like varies by role, but organisations should look for talent comfortable in this model.

Will new roles be required?

The short answer is yes. From AI engineers to AI strategists, AI roles are on the rise. For example, there has been a significant rise in the number of chief AI officer roles recently advertised. Additional capabilities in areas such as AI ethics and risk, process and change management will also be needed, some of which might be unique to your organisation or industry.

AI strategy without a matching talent strategy is like buying a race car without training a driver. The organisations that will thrive aren’t the ones with the most AI tools in their toolbox; they’re the ones with the most AI-ready people.

Gerhard Schweinitz is the chief people officer for V2 AI.