Use Cases for GenAI in Workforce Development

Welcome to a special post-Horizons issue of the Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work newsletter!  

As our team explores how we can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate progress toward economic equity, we’re filling up our “curiosity agenda” with big questions we’re eager to explore.   

One of the big questions we try to answer at the Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work is:

How can AI be used effectively in the education to workforce ecosystem?  

Because resources for educators and employers are more plentiful, we developed new research to find tangible use cases specifically for workforce development organizations—including training providers, public workforce boards, and organizations that provide career navigation services. 

A few highlights:  

• The market for workforce development-specific tools for organizations is underdeveloped. In some cases, workforce development organizations can use general-purpose tools built for other industries or customers. However, we see significant opportunities for tools that are more tailored to the workflows and nuances of the workforce system.  

• Many current use cases focus on incremental efficiency gains rather than transformational approaches to driving economic advancement. Alleviating the burden of manual processes like notetaking is certainly impactful in resource-constrained environments. However, we are excited about AI’s potential to help broaden opportunity for people who face barriers to advancement, such as through facilitating the building of social capital.  

• There is high saturation in career navigation and resume/cover letter tools. These tools were plentiful prior to the rise of generative AI, and we find that generative AI can further enhance both their speed and quality.  

Please let us know your feedback and share other use cases and tools you have been using or hope to see. We intend to continue iterating upon this research as we continue to learn alongside you all.  

AI Everywhere at Horizons 

Last week, we were thrilled to welcome two thousand leaders across the workforce and education ecosystems to Washington, DC, for our annual Horizons summit, bringing energy and excitement around ‘The Power of Us’ to be bold in driving economic advancement and access to quality jobs. As expected, AI was both an undercurrent and an explicit focus in many sessions and conversations, both in our dedicated AI “track” and throughout the summit.  

Some themes from our conversations include:  

• The need for tangible, actionable steps. It’s been a year and a half since the public launch of ChatGPT—and while the consensus says we know much more today than we did then, everyone is still figuring out generative AI’s implications for workers and learners. Even amidst uncertainty in the face of change and wondering whether AI is just another hype bubble about to burst, we overwhelmingly heard leaders eager to continue to learn—and asking for guidance on steps they can take now to help their organizations prepare. 

• The opportunities in policymaking. States play a key role in moving quickly while federal legislation is being developed. State lawmakers are collaborating across geographies, political differences, and with stakeholders across sectors to align approaches, balance protecting rights with mitigating risks, and seek to avoid a “patchwork” of regulation as more AI bills are set to be introduced, and potentially enacted, in the coming year.  

• The strength in collaboration—including with workers and learners themselves. The speed with which AI moves will demand new ways of working: closer partnerships between workforce developers and employers, designing solutions with, for, and alongside workers and learners, and ensuring everyone—including workers, faculty, workforce professionals, and small business employers—has the connectivity, skills, and resources they need to thrive in an AI-transformed future.       

• The potential in AI’s use cases for the workforce. As we explored above, the use cases for AI are vast, and we’ve only scratched the surface. Horizons attendees were eager to dive into potential use cases and think carefully about both opportunities and challenges for workers and learners.  

And perhaps the biggest theme of all: the profound importance of ensuring that AI is built and used with humans at the center. As Vivienne Ming said on the main stage: “We have to create tools that allow people to own their own future.” 

We’re excited to build on what we heard and saw at Horizons as we move into the second year of our work at the Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work. We hope you’ll join us.

The Latest From JFF and the Center for Artificial Intelligence & The Future of Work  

• The Center for AI’s Alex Swartsel and Tiffany Hsieh were featured on Paul Fain’s The Cusp podcast with Lydia Logan of IBM to discuss the democratization of AI skills (Spotify, Apple). 

• Tiffany Hsieh was featured in Inside Higher Ed, discussing the urgent need for AI skills in the workforce and the importance of cross-sector collaboration to equip our students for an AI-enabled world.  

• Alex Swartsel served as an advisor for the Engaging Adult Learners in Higher Education track of the 2023-24 Tools Competition, administered by The Learning Agency and Georgia State University. Congratulations to the 50 winners, announced Thursday, July 25, who were awarded more than $8 million for their innovative tech solutions, which are projected to impact more than 24 million learners worldwide.  

Your Voice 

We want to craft this newsletter with our community to create a dialogue around leveraging AI to drive equitable economic advancement. Please send us your thoughts on how we can improve this newsletter.