AI and Employment & Skills  - Business in the Community
Explore the impact of AI on employment and skills development. Learn how businesses can navigate AI responsibly.

AI and Employment & Skills 

Deep Dive: AI and Employment & Skills 

Business in the Community launched the Responsible AI Lab: a ground-breaking initiative that brought together leaders from business, government, and academia to co-create a comprehensive blueprint for Responsible AI. From this lab, we’ve established a set of actions that all businesses should focus on, our foundational guidance, and four topical deep dives to more thoroughly explore key issue areas. This deep dive explores AI as it relates to employment and workforce skill development.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

As AI becomes embedded in everyday work, employment, and skills will shape whether this transition expands opportunity or deepens existing divides. AI literacy remains uneven, with many people lacking the confidence or support to engage with new tools. Underserved communities face particular risks of exclusion as adoption accelerates1. At the same time, many leaders feel unprepared to manage AI-driven change. Strengthening AI literacy, widening access to learning, and building change-ready leadership are essential to ensure people can adapt, progress, and thrive in an AI-enabled world. 

Risks and opportunities

Evidence from the AI Labs shows that confidence, rather than capability, is often the main barrier to adoption. Younger, higher-skilled workers are more likely to experiment and be literate on AI, while others hesitate or disengage, increasing the risk of a two-speed workforce2. Where AI use is informal or unsupported, employees may rely on unsafe tools or avoid using AI altogether, limiting productivity gains and learning opportunities. 

Leadership capability is another pressure point. Many senior leaders outside technology functions feel unprepared to lead AI-enabled change3 4. Without a clear understanding at board and executive level, organisations struggle to align workforce planning, skills investment, and job design with the pace of AI adoption. This can result in reactive training, unclear expectations, and anxiety among employees about job security and future roles. 

AI also raises risks around job quality and progression, where entry-level and lower-skilled roles may face higher exposure to automation5 6, threatening talent pipelines if reskilling and redeployment are not prioritised. At the same time, over-reliance on AI can reduce critical thinking and skill development if learning focuses only on tool use rather than judgment, creativity, and problem-solving7. Where systems are perceived as highly reliable or ‘trusted’, employees may become less likely to question outputs, increasing the risk of de-skilling and reduced professional judgment over time. These gaps are particularly visible across regions, in smaller organisations, and among older workers, disabled people, and low-income communities, where access to training, secure tools, and confidence-building support is more limited. 

There are significant opportunities where organisations take a more intentional approach. AI can be used to personalise learning, identify skills gaps, and support flexible career pathways. Used well, it can help people return from career breaks, manage caring responsibilities, and transition into adjacent roles. Partnerships with schools, colleges, and community organisations can widen access to AI literacy beyond the workplace, supporting local economies and future talent. 

Why does this matter for your business?

If your business does not support your employees to adapt as AI changes work, you risk widening skills gaps, weakening your workforce’s resilience and ultimately losing talent. Uneven access to AI literacy and poor change management can reduce your employees’ confidence, increase anxiety, and limit engagement with new tools. Without deliberate investment in skills and progression, AI can erode job quality and progression pathways, particularly for early-career roles. This could undermine your productivity, retention, and long-term organisational capability. 

Actions by maturity level

Adopting

For organisations beginning to introduce AI into everyday work, where the priority is building basic awareness, confidence, and safe use across the workforce. 

  • Add AI safety to compliance training — to ensure staff understand acceptable use, risks, and basic safeguards when using AI tools. 
  • Share curated AI literacy resources with underserved groups — to widen access to introductory learning and reduce confidence gaps in AI use. 
  • Clarify acceptable AI use and encourage safe experimentation — to reduce shadow AI8 and give employees permission to engage responsibly with new tools. 

Embedding

For organisations seeking to move from ad hoc learning to more structured, inclusive skills development as AI use expands.

  • Integrate AI training into L&D (learning and development) strategies — to embed AI literacy into role-based learning and development pathways. 
  • Partner with local organisations and schools — to widen access to AI skills and support local talent pipelines. 
  • Co-design tools and learning with educators — to ensure training is practical, relevant, and accessible to different learner groups. 
  • Plan for role transition and redeployment as AI reshapes jobs — to support workforce planning, redeployment, and progression in response to identified role changes. 

Leading

For organisations taking a proactive approach to workforce transition, where leadership capability and job design are critical to managing AI-driven change.

  • Conduct role-based risk assessments — to systematically assess exposure, impact, and skill disruption across different roles and job families. 
  • Track and report AI literacy impact — to assess whether learning improves confidence, capability, and safe use over time. 
  • Establish shadow boards or AI councils — to build leadership understanding and challenge assumptions about AI use and workforce impact. 
  • Redesign roles and career pathways to reflect how AI is changing work — to build long-term skills resilience and future-ready career models. 

Transforming

For organisations looking beyond their own workforce to shape wider skills systems and long-term access to AI capability.

  • Advocate for inclusive AI education policies and national curriculum reform — to support fair access to AI skills across regions and communities. 

Case studies

Adopting

Lloyds Banking Group supports colleagues at all levels to build future-focused capabilities, including AI literacy. Its programmes focus on widening access to digital and data skills across the workforce, with tailored pathways for people based on their roles. This approach helps reduce confidence gaps, ensures safe use of AI tools, and creates a foundation for broader workforce transition as AI becomes more embedded.9  

Embedding

Accenture uses AI to map and track more than 8,000 skills across its workforce, linking this data to learning, deployment, and career progression. By integrating AI literacy and skills development into its wider L&D strategy, the organisation can match people to projects, tailor training, and support transitions into new roles. This enables a more proactive approach to workforce planning as job requirements evolve.10 

Verizon Business is partnering with Thames Freeport, alongside AstraZeneca and WPP, to deliver AI skills training for young people in the Thames Estuary. Through careers panels, mentoring, and real-world briefs delivered with social enterprise Unloc, learners apply AI to local challenges in health, social care, and community safety. The programme combines practical experience with access to micro-grants and entrepreneurship pathways, widening access to AI skills while building capability through cross-sector collaboration. 

Leading

BT Group’s TechWomen programme builds digital and AI-related skills among mid-career women, supporting progression into technical and leadership roles. The programme combines training, sponsorship, and clear pathways into future-facing roles, addressing both skills gaps and leadership representation. By linking AI capability to progression, BT strengthens its talent pipeline while supporting more inclusive access to emerging opportunities.11 

Atos is launching new Sovereign Delivery and Agentic AI centres12 across the UK, alongside redesigned early-career pathways for graduates and apprentices. Roles are structured to reflect how AI is reshaping tasks and skill requirements, with recruits gaining experience across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, data analytics, and digital services. Flexible practices, including term-time contracts, are built into roles. This approach supports diverse entry routes and prepares early-career talent to build resilient skills as technology evolves.13 14 

Transforming

Good Things Foundation, with the support from Accenture, launched the AI Gateway, a free learning platform designed to demystify AI and build understanding among digitally excluded adults. By supporting public education and community-level AI literacy, the initiative extends skills development beyond the workplace and contributes to a more inclusive talent pipeline. This reflects a system-level approach to addressing future skills needs.15 

Endnotes

1. UNESCO, 2024. AI Literacy and the New Digital Divide – A Global Call for Action.

2. Henseke, G. et al, 2025. What Drives AI and Robot Adoption? Findings from the Skills and Employment Survey 2024. 

3. Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education, 2024. The AI Leadership Gap: Skills, Education, and Preparedness. 

4. McKinsey & Company, 2025. Superagency in the Workplace: Empowering People to Unlock AI’s Full Potential.

5. International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2024. Gen-AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work. 

6. World Economic Forum, 2025. The Future of Jobs Report 2025.

7. Gerlich, M., 2025. AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking.

8. Shadow AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence tools or systems by employees without formal approval, oversight, or governance processes. 

9. Lloyds Banking Group, 2026. Technology and Data Opportunities.

10. Indeed, 2024. Accenture Thrives Thanks to Skills-First Hiring.

11. T Group, 2020. TechWomen: Closing the Gap in Tech.

12. Sovereign Delivery and Agentic AI centres provide an AI-enabled suite of sovereign offerings addressing demand for UK-based IT delivery, agentic automation, data hosting and resiliency for public sector, defence and critical national infrastructure businesses. 

13. Atos, 2025. Atos to launch new sovereign and sovereign AI centres across the UK. 

14. Atos, 2026. Atos creates AI-proofed career paths for 30 apprentices in Birmingham.

15. Good Things Foundation, 2025. Good Things Foundation launches the AI Gateway.

Explore our foundational guidance and other responsible AI deep dives

Foundational guidance

AI Ethics, Governance and Strategy

Building trust through transparent and ethical governance of artificial intelligence. 

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DEEP DIVE

AI and Diversity & Inclusion

Preventing bias, widening access and ensuring AI supports inclusive workplaces. 

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DEEP DIVE

AI and Health & Wellbeing

Protecting autonomy, setting healthy digital boundaries and supporting mental wellbeing. 

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DEEP DIVE

AI and the Environment

Reducing AI’s environmental footprint while using the technology to support climate and nature goals. 

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Thank you to our sponsors and contributors

We would like to thank Deloitte and Verizon for sponsoring the Responsible AI framework. We are also grateful to all the organisations, members and academic partners for their generous contributions, insights and expertise, which have meaningfully shaped the development of this framework, including BITC members, Verizon Business, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Pinsent Masons, and Shoosmiths, Dr Luca Arnaboldi, Dr. Mehreen Ashraf, Emre Kazim, Dr Felicia Liu, Zhuang Ma, Roberta Pierfederici, Dr Daniel Wheatley, Allwyn UK, Cancer Research UK, Good Things Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support and UKAI.