While artificial intelligence tools continue to develop, more and more industries are looking for workers who have skills in AI, creating opportunities for higher education to better prepare students.
A Recent Lightcast report have found that job offers requiring AI generating skills for non-computer science or information technology roles have increased nine times between 2022 and 2025, with more than 80,000 publications looking for these skills.
In addition to a rapid growth accent on AI's ability, job offers continue to require general skills, including communication, leadership, research and customer service – children who report that the authors have written are necessary so that workers have a lasting career.
“AI's technical capacities provide the foundation, but success depends on workers who can apply these tools strategically, effectively communicate information and solve problems requiring both human judgment and machine capacity,” said the report.
Methodology
The Lightcast report “Beyond the Buzz” analyzes the job offers erased in various employment panels, newspapers and employers' sites.
The report calls for a variety of AI skills adopted from the “IA index report” from the Stanford Institute for Man Centered on ManIncluding automatic learning and natural language processing, robotics, visual image recognition, AI ethics, autonomous driving, neural networks and generator AI.
Prepare the ground: In an earlier way, employers have called for more education on generative AI tools for those currently on the workforce and future workers. Industry leaders have warned that AI threatens entry -level roles For young talents, who Some say places Additional responsibility on colleges to integrate AI into the study program.
Students also indicate that they want to better understand how these tools could affect their work.
A May 2025 survey of students by ED inside And Generation Lab found that 20% of respondents think that their college or university should ensure that students are aware of the impact on the careers of emerging technologies such as AI. An investigation into Recent university graduates Also aligned in May 2025, noted that colleges did not quite reach the brand on the generative training of AI; 66% said they needed more training on how to work with new technologies in their current role.
The report: An analysis of the Lightcast data revealed that average work has seen 32% of the skills required going from 2021 to 2025, one in four work observing 75% of the skills change. Many of these highly disrupted roles are focused on technology, such as computer scientists, mobile application developers or web developers. However, more jobs outside of technology also sees AI slip into publications.
“Employers are already displaying jobs that require specific AI capacities, offering substantial salary bonuses for these skills and doing so in all the retail areas of retail for research,” according to the report.
The students who are most interested in working directly with a generative AI have also experienced a clear increase in career opportunities. Employment publications for generative AI engineers increased from 1,620 in 2022 to 11,160 in 2025, for example.
The share of jobs requiring AI skills has also increased nine times between work functions, with tens of thousands of jobs unrelated to it, mentioning AI -generating skills in their publications. In 2025, a minority of jobs in all sectors mentioned the skills in AI; Even in IT and IT, only 13% explicitly call AI experience as a desired candidate trait. But compared to previous years, the share develops between sectors, including soldiers, human resources and design, media and writing.
Some industries remain largely not affected; According to the report.
The roles that mention the skills in AI often have higher wages – an average of 28% higher, compared to jobs that do not mention the skills in AI, as well as good.
It is difficult to assess the jump in wage earnings for an employee qualified as IA compared to those who do not use AI, because AI positions range from an entry -level post more specialized in a field to a first row role with additional expertise in another. For example, in marketing and public relations, specialized roles in search engines are more likely to mention the skills in AI in publication (19%), compared to social media strategists (4%).
Do students want to use a generative AI?
Many employers and leaders of industry say that AI’s generating skills are the future and that labor professionals, especially young people, will have to know how to use the tools. But Gen Z has ethical concerns about technology. Learn more about the dilemma here.
So what? The authors of the report believe that understanding data concerning AI skills can improve educational institutions, helping them to infuse the study program with a relevant AI market and to link the financial results of programs for potential students.
For instructors, it is important to follow the skills listed in job offers to align the best of programs to workplace needs for their various programs, according to the report.
However, AI should remain a tool to improve the efficiency of education rather than replacing basic teaching skills, the authors wrote. The best general skills necessary for AI jobs, according to Lightcast data, include communication, management, operations, leadership, research, customer service, writing and problem solving.
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