In-demand AI skill prompt engineering pays $100K a year, says IBM exec
Bosses want to hire people with AI aptitude, but many employees aren’t focused on the new technology.
Nearly all executives — 96% — feel an urgency to incorporate AI into their business operations. Yet over two-thirds of desk workers say they’ve never used AI, according to a March 2024 Slack Workforce Lab survey of more than 10,000 professionals.
People who don’t learn AI risk losing career opportunities to those who do, says Lydia Logan, IBM’s vice president of global education and workforce development.
Generative AI is expected to affect more than 300 million jobs worldwide, per Goldman Sachs’s estimates.
You don’t need to learn the ins and outs of machine learning or data analytics to stay relevant in the changing landscape. The one AI skill that’s in “crazy demand,” according to Logan, and that she encourages everyone to learn, is prompt engineering.
“If you don’t give a good prompt to a generative AI tool, you’re not going to get a good answer. It’s garbage in and garbage out,” Logan explains. “Using AI effectively starts with prompt engineering. Without that, you’re kind of done before you start.”
For example: If you ask Chat GPT to gather research on a given topic, but don’t specify the publication date range of the citations, you could end up with research that is outdated or irrelevant.
If you’re interested in improving your prompt engineering skills, you can start with some basic online tutorials or practice writing detailed prompts on generative AI tools like Chat GPT or Microsoft Copilot.
Professionals at any stage of their career can benefit from learning how best to use AI, Logan says, but those with a high school degree or less might see the biggest gains. That’s because employers in the booming AI sector are increasingly hiring for skills, not degrees.
Four in 10 CEOs say they plan to hire additional staff because of generative AI, according to a recent IBM survey of 3,000 CEOs from over 30 countries and 26 industries.
Generative AI has created new types of jobs like prompt engineers and AI product managers that don’t require a bachelor’s degree and instead emphasize technical and soft skills, Logan points out.
AI professionals are required across all industries, but there’s a particularly urgent need in tech, retail, finance, health care and education, she adds.
Many of these jobs pay six figures. The average salary potential for a job that includes generative AI as a required skill is $174,727 a year, per Indeed.
“I cannot stress this enough: Prompt engineering is a gateway skill that you can use almost anywhere,” says Logan. “It’s a skill that can open the door to so many opportunities.”
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