Over 50% CDAOs Will Secure Funding For Data, AI Literacy Programmes By 2027: Gartner

By 2027, more than half of chief data and analytics officers will secure funding for data literacy and artificial intelligence literacy programmes, fuelled by the inability of enterprises to realise the value they expect from generative AI, research and consulting firm Gartner has predicted.

According to Gartner, only a few organisations are currently implementing AI literacy programmes. While the skills and capabilities of AI are concentrated to highly technical roles, the status of AI is rapidly changing as industry executives begin to realise the importance of a workforce knowledgeable in data, analytics and AI.

“To build such a workforce, organisations require data literacy and AI literacy as core competencies. Critical-thinking and problem-solving abilities may decrease as AI natives depend more heavily on AI for information and decision-making, diminishing their need to analyse situations independently,” said Melissa Davis, VP analyst at Gartner.

The current algorithms and models for generative AI solutions are complex and opaque, and the information used to fuel the models is not being adequately curated. This is why CDAOs must invest in their people to build strong data, analytics and AI skills. Without these skills, AI may fail to deliver the expected value and potentially introduce additional failure points, Gartner said.

“Improving data and AI literacy is critical to identifying relevant and value-adding AI use cases. Yet, turning the general promise of AI into concrete business impact demands strong collaboration between business stakeholders and AI experts, which requires a common ground in terms of understanding the main AI concepts and having realistic expectations about what AI can and cannot do,” said Davis.

Enterprises should evaluate the workforce's preparedness for AI in terms of data and AI literacy, and they should be upfront about whether or not the workforce possesses the skills needed to make use of AI techniques.

According to Gartner, organisations should also support corresponding data and AI literacy education as a critical competency for their workforce if there is any area of planned investment in generative AI technology or AI use-case deployment.