In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020), LinkedIn released a report showing that the demand for AI skills had cooled down--but by October 2020, demand had already come roaring back. This is not surprising: according to the 2020 RELX Emerging Tech Executive Report, AI adoption soared during the pandemic, and a staggering 68% of companies increased their AI investment during the year. Further, 81% of companies now report using AI technologies, up 33 percentage points since 2018. Companies are increasingly using AI technologies on mission-critical applications, which has led to an explosion in the need for data scientists and technologists to build and support these applications. Not surprisingly, 39% of companies now cite a lack of technology expertise as a leading stumbling block to AI usage and adoption.

The quest for national AI success has electrified the world--at last count, 44 countries have entered the race by creating their own national AI strategic plan. While the inclusion of countries like China, India, and the U.S. are expected, unexpected countries, including Uganda, Armenia, and Latvia, have also drafted national plans in hopes of realizing the promise. Our earlier posts, entitled "How different countries view artificial intelligence" and "Analyzing artificial intelligence plans in 34 countries" detailed how countries are approaching national AI plans, as well as how to interpret those plans. In this piece, we go a step further by examining indicators of future AI needs. Clearly, having a national AI plan is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve the goals of the various AI plans circulating around the world; 44 countries currently have such plans. In previous posts, we noted how AI plans were largely aspirational, and that moving from this aspiration to successful implementation required substantial public-private investments and efforts.