HR, think specific when implementing AI, says Coursera

In 2023, a learner signed up for a generative AI course on Coursera every minute.

But in 2024, this rate has doubled with a whopping 1,060% year-on-year increase in global generative AI course enrollments.

There were, of course, regional differences. The year-on-year rise was more significant in APAC (1,270%) and sub-Saharan Africa (1,500%), compared to 775% for Europe (specifically 783% in France and 961% in the UK) and 1,040% in North America (1,058% in the US).

These astounding stats come from Coursera’s 2024 Global Skills Report.

For Coursera, the data shows that individuals across the world are actively preparing and upskilling themselves for the AI-powered future.

It also demonstrates the successful efforts of businesses and governments to prepare AI-ready economies – though continued focus here is needed, according to Coursera’s report.

Every job is being disrupted by AI

In an exclusive in-person interview with UNLEASH, Coursera’s Chief Content Officer Marni Baker Stein said what is “astonishing” about the figures from the Global Skills Report is that other big, digital skills (like cloud, cybersecurity and bioinformatics) are nowhere close to the popularity of AI and generative AI specifically.

This makes sense as AI is affecting all types of jobs – whether someone is a teacher, a nurse, a cybersecurity analyst, a data engineer, and everything in between – “and humans are noticing; they’re fascinated”.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like it”, Baker Stein tells UNLEASH.

She adds that what is interesting is that people are coming to Coursera for the whole spectrum of AI learning – whether it’s a basic overview of what the tech is, to actually creating novel use cases.

All of this is not to say that companies, government and learners should neglect non-AI skills – “you don’t just want technical skills”, foundational skills like master storytelling, communications, problem solving are just as important as ever.

Skills are the way to get ahead” of disruption, according to Baker Stein – “we will superpower those skills sets with generative AI”.

It’s time to embrace agile, rapid, life-long, in the flow of work learning.

Not only is this more engaging, but it’ll fix some of the demographic challenges, including around gender where there remain learning gaps, and create a more equitable, accessible future of work.

It’s time to think about AI at the job task level

UNLEASH was keen to find out Baker Stein and Coursera’s advice to HR leaders grappling with AI and this complicated, dynamic skills landscape.

Baker Stein’s top tip is not for HR to talk high level and generically about AI – that’s not what people are excited about; they are excited about how AI is going to disrupt (in the best possible way) their individual role and tasks.

Since AI is going to impact different jobs in different ways, she calls for HR leaders and functional leaders to work in “deep partnership”, and to “really understand jobs at the tasks and skills level like never before”.

It is only by looking at the tasks that make up roles can organization figure out how to “predict the disruption ahead”.

This echoes the conclusions of Slack’s SVP of Research Christina Janzer who UNLEASH also recently interviewed on the trending topic of AI and HR.

For Baker Stein, there’s also a role for HR to really empower people to use AI and encourage that learning mindset.

But the responsibility isn’t all on the employer – employees also need to be able to say, this is my job, these are my job tasks, and this is the learning path I need to be on to stay competitive in the AI future.