AI is for everyone. It's supposed to help you write your CV, not just build code

• According to an IDC report commissioned by Microsoft, the labor market is changing rapidly under the influence of artificial intelligence. 77% of organizations in Poland use or plan to use AI in the next 12 months.
• Microsoft wants to support Poles in acquiring these skills. At the end of last year, it announced a training initiative in which it wants to train one million people in AI-related skills by the end of 2025.
• - Let's remember that AI is for everyone. It is supposed to help in creating documents, replying to emails, and not just in creating code - says Łukasz Foks, director of the AI ​​Skills initiative at Microsoft.

In one of your interviews you said: "My mission is to replace the ability to use Office in the CVs of Poles with proficiency in AI". Is this such a valuable skill that every Pole should have it?

Director of the AI ​​Skills Initiative at Microsoft Łukasz Foks: - It's a universal skill. I think it's a subset of these great digital skills, so that's why I think it's the one we should actually put on our CV if we get these superpowers related to artificial intelligence.

Interestingly, many people respond to this quote by asking "what's the point for me if I'm not a programmer, I'm not a programmer?" Let's remember that AI is for everyone. It's supposed to help with creating documents, replying to emails, not just creating code.

Does this mean that we will not find a job soon without such competences?

- We have published a new Work Trend Index study, in which we asked Polish business leaders to tell us what it looks like from their perspective. It turns out that no one is saying yet that they will not employ people without these competences, but companies want to see that people have such skills. So we have indicators that people are already looking at CVs and wondering whether AI can be used in a given role. Then, of course, they translate this into processes. I think that AI is ubiquitous and increasingly common, so we should definitely include these AI-related superpowers in our profiles.

Watch the entire interview with Łukasz Foks from Microsoft:

Which industries would you mention as those in which we would never have thought that AI would be useful?

- I think these are all industries where there is actually some process or information exchange. People think that a plumber will not use AI, and I say that he will. A plumber searches for prices, searches for information about products, so today he can use AI for this research.

The digital competences of Poles are still too low

And we, as a society, how are we doing with AI skills? Because digital skills in general are seriously lacking. In this respect, we are one of the last countries in the EU.

- We see that business people want to build these skills, so they see the need. Almost 50% of people we asked in Poland about digital skills say they want to invest in staff in the context of artificial intelligence. In fact, one in two leaders says they want to invest in the development of these competencies.

However, these skills are different: on the one hand, we have the best programmers - over two hundred thousand people who code for the world, create start-ups, support large enterprises; on the other hand, 44.3 percent of Poles in the study conducted by the European Commission Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) have basic digital skills, and about 20 percent have advanced ones. So you can see what grassroots work we have to do to make this happen.

Microsoft wants to help equip Poles with AI-related skills

Will reskilling and upskilling help to fill this competence gap in any way?

- There is no turning back from this. I will say this: this is a huge job that the private and public sectors must do. We feel responsible for this because we are also creating AI products. Let's not kid ourselves, the future is about artificial intelligence, it is about general-purpose technology, like electricity and the printing press used to be. This change will not happen without the skills of people who will take the helm and create the future of AI.

We are talking a few weeks before the final exams. This year, during this exam, the topic of ChatGPT glasses appeared, which display answers to questions on the inside of the lenses. Young people are considering whether to invest in this technology, and the Ministry of Education in a statement provided to wp.pl says it is looking into the matter. It is known that regulations do not keep up with technology, but is there not a common path of agreement missing here?

- I think that teachers set the direction for the use of artificial intelligence. We have two hundred educators in Poland who work with us in the Microsoft Innovator Educator program and thanks to this I also see good applications of new technologies in the teaching process.

Personally, I would say that the glasses example is not the best. We should acquire knowledge and skills in all areas of knowledge, if only to judge whether artificial intelligence is telling the truth. This is important.

It's good when AI allows you to give personalized advice faster. For example, I'm a math student, I'm starting to learn about statistics, I have a problem with specific data and today I don't have to come to a math club, I can just throw a question in Copilot and after a while I have the answer and conduct a dialogue as if we were doing it with a tutor. So I have the impression that AI gives us a chance to build knowledge in a better way.

You have taken on the task of training our society in AI skills. As part of the AI ​​Skills Navigator program, you want to train a million people in Poland in AI skills. How will you start this training?

- The phrase "AI proficiency" fits perfectly here, meaning that no matter what superpowers we have, we can always take something from the world of artificial intelligence for ourselves, e.g. preparing a CV or presentation faster. These were skills that used to require more time, and today AI suggests the first templates or drafts that we can later develop.

So we start training from the basics, but later we want to move into advanced technologies. Poland has talented programmers, so it would be good if our country created the future of artificial intelligence. In breakthrough technologies, it is not the country that wins, which is first, but the one that introduces them on the scale of its population. So if we focus on this, we have a chance to actually set directions. And this is already happening in Europe. A great example is the French start-up Mistral AI, which is actually an independent company today. It competes with Amazon, with Google, with us, but it is also our partner.

This is a great example of how developers can create the future, but it won't happen without business decisions. And that's the third group: business leaders. It's up to them to make sure we have the budget, to have the approval, and to be able to explore where this AI world is going. We need to have some time to tie it all together and create a digital workforce that works for us, but it won't happen without business decisions.