With Generative AI steadfastly changing the industrial landscape globally, the online learning platform Coursera recently launched its Gen AI Academy to help upskill and reskill the workforce.
The need for continuous learning, upskilling
The presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 21st century plays a pivotal role. Industries today are focused on upskilling their workforces to adapt to the ever-evolving technological landscape. Hence, at the forefront of engineering, there is a need to reskill and upskill in the face of modern innovations.
In a world of seamless enhancement through AI, the revolution of this technology is steadfastly influencing how the globe works. AI has tremendously reshaped many industries. Despite the ongoing debate of man versus technology, upscaling the workforce remains imperative for continuous learning and adaptation.
Last year, Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister V Sivakumar, citing a 2020 World Economic Forum report, said that 50 per cent of workers will need to be retrained in the next two years to remain employed.
As reported by Astro Awani, Sivakumar warns that AI, already used to automate tasks in various industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and customer service, could trigger a recession in the job market.
“With the advent of Industrial Revolution 4.0, there is an urgent need to transform the national workforce into a skilled one to remain relevant. Fortunately, the newly emerging jobs can integrate technology, and skill improvement is essential not only for career advancement or change but also for job retention,” he told reporters last year.
Understanding this, Raghav Gupta, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Coursera, an online learning platform, shared that with the innovation of generative AI (Gen AI), approximately 4.5 million Malaysians will need to reskill and upskill.
Sharing a study by a global leader in labour market analytics, Lightcast, Raghav said that jobs requiring Gen AI skills, or some sort of Gen AI skills, have grown 20 times over the past year. Commenting further, Raghav added that having these skills is important in today’s working landscape as innovations are steadily growing.
“You know the difference with other technologies which are very technical in nature: whether you are a software professional or a data science person, you will probably need to use those technologies. The difference with Gen AI as a technology is how powerful it is. It’s many times more powerful compared to our general technology now, and that’s what is reshaping industries today,” he said.
The need for Gen AI courses
Started in 2012 by two professors from Stanford University in California, Coursera is a platform offering learning courses from educators at 325 different institutions. Some notable universities that offer courses on the platform include Stanford, Yale, Michigan, and others. Additionally, companies like Google and Microsoft contribute to the platform.
In Malaysia, Coursera has seen significant growth, with 754,000 learners registering last year, representing a 27 per cent increase compared to previous years. Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest number of registered learners in the region. Now HRDC-compliant, the platform expects to welcome more learners from abroad.
Recently, Coursera launched its Gen AI Academy in Malaysia, following its successful global launch earlier this year. The foundational literacy programme — GenAI Academy for Everyone — provides a comprehensive understanding of GenAI’s core principles, applications, and impact, enabling employees to enhance productivity and innovation using AI tools.
The academy offers a blend of foundational literacy and executive education programmes from top research universities and companies at the forefront of AI, including Microsoft, Stanford Online, Vanderbilt University, DeepLearning.AI, Google Cloud, and AWS.
Gen AI, an important tool
One widely used example of a Gen AI tool is ChatGPT. Raghav explained that this remarkable technology, which is part of the Large Language Models (LLM), “is essentially able to process a language, whether that language is in the form of text, voice, or images, and resynthesise it at a very large scale.”
Elaborating further, Raghav noted that this powerful tool can, for instance, draft an itinerary for a holiday trip when used simply.
“But that’s like using it as a search engine. However, the real power of ChatGPT lies in what one could call ‘Prompt Engineering’ or ‘writing prompts’, where users can interact with this technology and derive much greater value from it.”
At Coursera, the learning platform identified a need to address Gen AI and adopt the technology as part of the industry reshaping process. With Gen AI Academy, Coursera introduced three pillars. The first is “Gen AI for Everyone”, which introduces the technology in general.
“The second pillar is ‘Gen AI for Executives’, and this is for companies that want to adopt Gen AI. This introduces the technology to CEOs and COOs. The last pillar is ‘Gen AI for Teams’, which can help companies that focus on product development or the customer service industry.”
Each pillar, Raghav said, helps learners better navigate Gen AI by focusing on what’s essential to the company’s AI strategy.
“What this helps you do in terms of key skills is build a basic understanding of the technology and introduce some LLMs that should be part of a company’s strategy.”
To learn more about Coursera, its online learning platform, the lessons it offers, and the Gen AI Academy, visit www.coursera.org.
