What should an AI Skills Strategy look like?

The Government recently released its AI Strategy. Toi Mai CEO, Dr Claire Robinson, followed up by calling for an AI Skills Strategy. Here we look at what an AI Skills Strategy should look like.

The Government’s AI strategy outlines the potential GDP and productivity impacts of AI adoption with key actions to reduce regulatory uncertainty, overcome concerns about AI ethics and complexity, build confidence in AI, overcome a perception that there is little value in AI adoption, and attract AI investment.

AI is already being widely adopted in New Zealand’s workplaces. The AI Forum’s AI in Action 2025 survey found that 82% of respondents reported some level of AI use in their organisation and 73% reported having received AI training in their organisation.

The Forum’s survey is skewed towards knowledge workers. Around one-third of responses came from the professional, scientific, and technical services sector, which made up 9.8% of employment in New Zealand over the year to March 2024. Nonetheless, it’s hard to ignore the extent to which AI has quickly become part of many people’s daily lives since ChatGPT was launched publicly in November 2022.

The Government’s AI Strategy explains that the AI skills gap currently operates at multiple levels: technical specialists who can implement and maintain AI systems, managers who understand how to integrate AI into business processes, executives who can develop AI strategies aligned with business objectives, and workers who know how to use AI productively and responsibly.

The Strategy points to AI-related courses being offered by universities, and MBIE’s Business Mentors New Zealand upskilling both its mentors and Growth Advisors from the Regional Business Partner Network. There are also and initiatives being led by the Government Chief Digital Officer such as AI masterclasses for leaders and foundational courses for public servants.

In calling for an AI Skills Strategy, Dr Robinson recognises that tertiary education providers have already developed Masters-level AI skills programmes and included machine learning components in bachelor’s degrees. However, these types of courses are aimed at those with existing computer science backgrounds and/or require long periods of specific study. Dr Robinson points out that it is the wider workforce, much of which is aging, that needs upskilling now in how to use the tools of AI in their workplace. The ability to utilise AI in the workplace, she days, is a skill needed across every sector of the economy.

Dr Robinson asks the Government to invest in short-course training, utilising New Zealand’s network of private training enterprises (PTEs), wānanga, institutes of technology and polytechnics, and universities. Open Polytechnic’s Introduction to Generative AI micro-credential is an example of an introductory initiative that should be scaled. Unlike lengthy bachelor and master degree programmes, these short courses would offer micro-credentials (8–12 week modules) targeting immediate productivity gains.

I would go further than this. AI is a fast-moving technology and while there is a role for foundational courses in schools, secondary education, and tertiary education, as well as technical courses such as Masters-level AI skills programmes for people with a data science background and other hard-core AI users, the technology is developing too fast for many tertiary education providers to keep up. Foundational courses in AI need to include resources for informal online learning where users can continue their development in the AI skills they need at their own pace.

Looking at the wider tech sector, NZ Tech reported in their 2021 Digital Skills For Our Digital Future report that tertiary education is not the only pathway into ICT professions. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of online learning. Online courses have proliferated from platforms such as Udemy, Udacity, Acumen, and Harvard Business School. These pathways offer alternatives for people who do not want to, or cannot, participate in tertiary education. The platforms provide competitive pricing, targeted, compact, and convenient programmes.

In recent years, there has also been an expansion of proprietary courseware offered by Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce and others. Tech students have also embraced self-learning with YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn Learning and other online platforms being used to learn specific skills as and when they are needed.

Many major AI companies are now offering proprietary training courses and certifications to help individuals and organisations learn how to use their AI tools. These courses can cover everything from basic usage to advanced integration and prompt engineering. Examples include Microsoft, Spark, ChatGPT Learn, Google Cloud Skills Boost, and the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI).

Proprietary platforms tend to teach skills specific to the platform, which can limit skill transferability. Informal learning courses can lack the formal recognition that a graduate obtains from, say, an NZQA recognised course. Online informal learning also lacks the workplace-learning element.

But looking beyond formal tertiary education to upskill the New Zealand population in AI use presents opportunities to facilitate access, maintain skills currency, and reach a much larger number of learners with a smaller investment in education infrastructure, many of whom will need to fit their learning around already busy lives. It simply cannot be ignored.