Most Leaders Wouldn’t Hire Someone Without AI Skills

THE BIG IDEA

Introducing Generation GPT

A fresh wave of new grads is about to enter the workforce. What are the aspirations of this generation as they embark on their careers? And more crucially, how should business leaders adjust their strategies to meet these new expectations?

To get answers, we decided to do something crazy—we asked them.

We surveyed 332 Gen Z students, aged 18-27, across the United States who are graduating this year or who completed their studies in December 2023. Our findings reveal significant shifts, not only compared to last year's study of a similar cohort, but also challenging entrenched norms and signaling the need for a reevaluation of old-school workplace dynamics.

Contrary to widespread fears of AI-induced job erosion, Gen Z is shockingly positive about AI, with only 22% having AI-related concerns for the workforce. As one student explained, “AI will make it easier to get the tedious processes out of the way so I can do the specialized stuff.” This is a startling difference from the 61% of U.S. adults who around this time last year said AI is a threat to humanity.

Sixty-one percent want to use Gen AI in their future careers, and training in AI is increasingly regarded as crucial. Fifty-two percent say that AI training opportunities are a key factor in what company they choose to work for. Seventy-two percent said Gen AI saves them up to 10 hours a week, which gives them ample time for a side hustle. And 1 in 3 wouldn’t be interested in a job if the company banned using AI tools at work.

It seems Gen Z isn’t just gearing up to join the workforce; they're looking to revolutionize it. As one ambitious student revealed, they want to build “a company with skilled workers whose talents are on par with AI.”

The message is loud and clear: It's time for a corporate glow-up — and business leaders will need to adapt fast because the GPT generation is about to change everything.

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CHART OF THE WEEK

No AI skills? No job

Workers with high-level AI technical skills are in high demand—in the last eight years hiring for these positions has increased 323%. Now executives are looking for non-technical talent with AI aptitude: the skills to use generative AI effectively. According to new data from Microsoft, 66% of leaders say they wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills. And 71% say they’d rather hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced candidate without them.

“Over the past few decades, companies have been renegotiating the psychological contract—the why of work—with their employees, influenced by new generations, labor trends, and the pandemic,” said BU Organizational Psychologist Constance Noonan Hadley. “Now companies must renegotiate the ‘operational contract’—the how of work—with their employees as AI puts more power into the hands of workers in terms of the way the job gets done.”

DEEP DIVE

7 top use cases for generative AI in fintech

In 2023, the generative-AI-in-fintech market was valued at $1.1 billion globally, per a report from DataHorizzon Research. By 2032, this figure is expected to expand to nearly $20 billion. McKinsey believes GenAI will add between $200 and $340 billion in annual value to the banking sector.

With that said, generative AI faces challenges in the financial services industry given its highly regulated nature. Banks are skeptical of generative AI models sharing advice on investing without human oversight, as chatbots carry the risk of hallucinating.

But the cat is out of the bag. From reshaping tax operations to fraud detection and invoice processing, generative AI is already revolutionizing fintech capabilities.

We created a guide to the top 7 generative AI use cases in finserv — here’s a preview of the top three:

1. Customer Service

Standard LLMs like ChatGPT help make sense of the financial world but have limitations based on their input data and level of nuance. To solve this need, Kasisto built KAI-GPT, the financial industry’s “first LLM purpose-built for banking.” Industry players can utilize the conversational AI platform to streamline customer service interactions, lowering call center traffic. The AI chatbot offers advice on financial decisions, facilitating “human-like” conversations that boost the customer experience.

2. Financial reporting, research, and data analysis

GenAI models make it easier than ever to sort through massive quantities of data to find patterns and distill key learnings—a major piece of what the financial industry does. Kensho provides a suite of AI-powered data and analytics tools used by hedge funds, asset managers, and other types of investors. The Kensho insights platform sorts through gobs of financial news, research, and social media to share insights on company performance, market trends, and risk factors.

3. Fraud detection and prevention

Crime doesn’t always pay, but financial crime surely can. According to FIBE, American fintech firms lose an average of $51 million annually due to fraud. Unlike traditional fraud detection systems that rely on static rules and models, GenAI learns and adapts from the data a model processes, continuously improving its knowledge base and output. As such, these models can evolve to recognize new types of fraud as they emerge without human intervention, allowing companies to more rapidly flag and block suspicious financial activity.

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WATERCOOLER

Could you spot an AI catfish?

If watching reality TV makes you wonder if you’re the last person on earth with an internal monologue, you probably haven’t been following season 6 of The Circle on Netflix. It started during the pandemic and it’s basically a popularity contest between wannabe influencers for cash prizes. They all live for a few weeks in an apartment building, except they don’t meet face to face until the end of the season. Hence the high propensity for catfishing—i.e. pretending to be an attractive young woman online if you’re a lonely guy in your 40s.

The big catfish this season is Max, a bland white guy with a dog in his profile who is nice to everyone and enthusiastic in a harmless way. Except Max is AI. And the dog in the picture was selected because the AI knew that pictures with dogs get 30% more likes. Max fools all the other contestants on the show. When the producers reveal that one of the contestants is AI, everyone starts accusing each other. Except no one accuses Max. (For some reason, people were convinced that one young woman who likes astrology was AI. Another contestant’s day job was as an AI engineer. Even he couldn’t smell the rat.)

Which begs the question: How much of this AI was really AI and how much of it was savvy producers writing the perfect character? The device that they show on screen, a plastic column with some colorful lights on it, is clearly a prop. Did they really have someone backstage banging questions into GPT-4? How much fine-tuning and prompt engineering went into this? Apparently the AI watched all five previous seasons, so it had a leg up on strategy.

We’ll hold off on any spoilers about who wins. Suffice to say: It’s already convincing AI nerds inside A.Team who normally snub reality TV to tune in.

DISCOVERY ZONE

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EVENTS

A human-first approach to healthcare innovation

Join an all-star group of healthcare operators, innovators, and technologists to learn from their on-the-ground experience integrating AI into healthcare. Tuesday, May 21 at 12pm EST.

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Gen AI Salon: The Future of Finance

Join an invite-only group of fintech founders, VCs, researchers, and decision-makers on May 29th for a Generative AI Salon dedicated to the future of finance in NYC. In-person at 5pm EST. Streaming starts at 6pm.

Apply to Attend

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