Gartner Releases Talent Neuron Data from 2015 to 2019
AI Talent Utilization Increases in Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Finance, and R&D Departments

Over the past four years, it has been found that departments seeking talent with AI technical capabilities are more often from other business units rather than the IT field.

According to Talent Neuron data released by Gartner on March 19, AI talent demand in IT departments increased three-fold from 2015 to 2019, but when compared with other business units, this fell short of even half the level, according to the compilation.

Departments recruiting AI talent on a large scale include ▲marketing ▲sales ▲customer service ▲finance ▲research and development, and these business units were utilizing AI talent for ▲customer churn modeling ▲customer profitability analysis ▲customer segmentation ▲cross-sell and upsell recommendations ▲demand planning ▲risk management and others.

A significant portion of AI use cases were being utilized in asset-intensive industries supporting projects such as predictive maintenance, workflow and production optimization, quality management, and supply chain optimization.

In these departments, there were many cases where AI talent was directly recruited with clear use cases in mind, which allows data scientists and others to learn complex matters in specific business areas while maintaining close alignment with the deployment and utilization of their work results.

Peter Krenskey, Gartner Research Director, stated, "High demand and fierce labor markets have increased the competitiveness of candidates with AI technical capabilities, but organizations' recruitment techniques and strategies have not kept pace with this," and added, "Respondents participating in Gartner's recently released AI and ML Development Strategy research report cited employee skill levels as the maximum challenge or barrier to AI and machine learning adoption."

He continued, "Given the complexity, novelty, and multidisciplinary nature of AI, along with its potentially tremendous impact, CIOs and HR leaders must consider what capabilities AI specialists should possess from their first day of work and analyze evaluation criteria for candidates that approach hiring requirements." He further stated, "CIOs must think creatively about IT's role and activities in overseeing and supporting various AI initiatives and teams leading those activities."

Meanwhile, additional analysis regarding AI talent trends is scheduled to take place at the Gartner IT Symposium & Expo 2020.