CIOs face uphill climb in finding skilled artificial intelligence talent

New data from Gartner Inc. suggests that the recruiting, management, and retention of artificial intelligence talent (AI) will be a strategic challenge globally for the foreseeable future. For the past four years, Gartner found, the strongest demand for talent with AI skills has come from non-IT departments. Departments recruiting AI talent in high volumes include marketing, sales, customer service, finance, and research and development, Gartner said in a press release. "These business units are using AI talent for customer churn modeling, customer profitability analysis, customer segmentation, cross-sell and upsell recommendations, demand planning, and risk management." Gartner TalentNeuron data released Wednesday shows the total AI jobs posted by non-IT departments in Top 12 countries by GDP, grew 74%, to 156,294 through March 2019, from 89,895 in July 2015.