Non -technical employers are looking for workers with AI skills. Colleges listen

As Christian Vivas signed up for a new artificial intelligence program at Miami Dade College, he had already experienced the use of chatgpt to help him write emails to Creative Media Studio customers.

Vivas, 37, said that most of his classmates were like him – well -in their careers seeking to learn to use AI or use it better. Thanks to its courses, Vivas, which holds a baccalaureate in electrical engineering, has progressed far beyond the use of chatgpt. He now employs AI in almost all aspects of his work: generating images, videos, marketing plans and social media legends.

“It is very deeply integrated into our company now,” said Vivas.

As generative AI technology quickly changes the labor market, employers are increasingly looking for AI skills for positions outside the technology sector, such as health care, hospitality and the media.

To follow, students are looking for ways to strengthen their skills in AI and are becoming more marketable among the growing concerns that AI will replace humans in the labor market. There is evidence to suggest artificial intelligence Maybe already replaced Some jobs. Entry -level positions are in particular at risk of being replaced by AIA report by Oxford Economics shows.

A global survey Out of more than 1,000 large companies have shown that 41% expect to reduce their workforce within five years due to AI. But most companies – 77% – also plan to train their employees to “work better alongside AI”, according to the Future of January report of the World Economic Forum in January. Last year, the number of online jobs that included generative AI as desired competence increased by 323%For more than 66,000 against less than 16,000, according to a report by the Lightcast work analysis company.

Colleges are also motivated by these trends: they add AI to their course catalogs, and individual teachers modify the lessons to include the construction of AI skills.

Miami Dade College, for example, made his debut Artificial intelligence certificate program In 2025, just over a month after the discharge of Chatgpt. The program offers automatic learning, ethics and natural language programming lessons, among other courses. Since the deployment of the certificate program, the school has added associate and baccalaureate programs to an applied AI.

“We have started to develop this idea around the application of AI-how you can apply AI, how can you learn AI in a community college-where it is open to everyone, not just a few who can obtain master's degree or doctorate,” said Antonio Delgado, vice-president of innovation and technological partnerships in Miami Dade College.

In 2022, the college also created Miami Tech Works, an organization that helps technological companies find qualified workers. Recently, more companies outside the technology have contacted people who know how to use AI.

Miami Dade College's programs attracted students such as Vicky Cheung, who decided to register for the artificial intelligence awareness certificate program in 2025, after being released from Miami hospital where she had worked for more than two decades.

Cheung, who already had a business baccalaureate and a master's degree in health management, was looking for curriculum vitae construction courses. She thinks that her AI lessons, associated with her work experience, helped her get her new job by analyzing how to improve processes and workflow in another hospital.

Program registration has shown employers “that I try to find a way to improve my skills,” she said.

The country's schools have announced programs similar to that of Miami Dade College: Courses Artificial intelligence in commercial circles And UA minors marketed with students who are not computer -maker. But higher education establishments are not intrinsically agile – and technology is evolving rapidly.

Since generating AI changes so quickly, there are no studies or identification schools do not use or cannot consider it, as a guide test. What are these lessons and rules on how students should use AI vary according to the institution, or even class in class.

“The problem we have is that AI changes the industries so quickly that manuals, the study program – when you get it approved, it is relevant, but it is exceeded,” said Josh Jones, CEO of Entehub, a company working with schools such as the University of Alabama and Emory University to add ia lessons.

There are also drawbacks for the use of a generative AI – students can use technology to cheat work and certain studies indicate that students who use AI on assignments are less committed to their lessons and use it to avoid critical thinking.

Higher education establishments recognize risks, but also the need to prepare students for the world of work.

For Derrick Anderson, who teaches public affairs at Arizona State University and is the main vice-president of the American Council on Education, it's simple: if AI is a tool that students will use at Jobs, they should learn to use it in his class.

“Because I prepare them for the labor market, they must know how to use AI ethically, but effectively and effectively,” said Anderson.

Now, instead of having students to write a test at the end of one of his public affairs courses, Anderson makes them produce a video with the help of Chatgpt. A student from Anderson's class Created a video On new technologies that imitate the human brain. In the video, the student tells like an image generated by the AI of a brain model turns on the screen.

Previously, one of Anderson's class assignments forced students to write a memo; Now they have to write four different types of memos using Chatgpt and describe scenarios where they would be appropriate.

“It is a fundamentally different exercise that implies a much larger volume of content because the content is so much easier to create,” said Anderson.

The students of its classes used their AI videos and projects in their portfolios when they are looking for jobs to show that they have experience with these programs, even if they do not have a specific diploma or identification.

Employers are looking for this type of examples demonstrating skills in AI graduates, said Ken Finneran, human resources vice-president of the EMED digital health care company. Each department of EMED, from marketing to human resources to finance, uses in one way or another of generative artificial intelligence tools, said Finneran, and the company expects potential employees to have fundamental knowledge of AI.

Gilreath wrote This story For The Hechinger reportAn independent non -profit press organization has focused on inequality and innovation in education.