I'm the president of O'Reilly, which offers a learning platform that helps organisations stay ahead of the latest technologies. Two of our larger clients in the UK are a financial organisation with about 7,000 active users on our learning platform and a telecommunications company with about 20,000. Both have very high levels of engagement with resources about AI and ML--greater than the average per-user consumption on our platform. Now, these companies are big enough that they likely can hire as needed, but they know the importance of upskilling their current workforce. Not only is it cost-effective for the organisation, but it also provides growth opportunities to those who are willing to learn something new.

Real-world AI deployments surged over the past year as companies sought to remain competitive during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study released today by KPMG. However, even as they expanded and accelerated their AI projects, organizations expressed concerns about ethics and bias, and suggested AI might be getting ahead of regulations. KPMG's study, called "Thriving in an AI World," replicates a study conducted before COVID-19 upended our world a year ago. That provided KPMG Principal of AI, Traci Gusher, a convenient baseline to test how AI deployments have been impacted by COVID-19. "Over half the business leaders that we talked to said that AI is at least moderately to fully functional in their organization, which is a significant increase," Gusher says.