The AI skills playbook
The AI skills playbook
Your guide to building an AI-ready workforce
Introduction
For today's business leaders, AI skilling isn't just a training initiative, it's a core business strategy.
As advancements in AI gather speed, it's not just about adapting, it's about discovering powerful new ways for employees to be innovative, automate repetitive tasks, and work alongside AI.
This playbook outlines a 5-step strategy (along with actionable courses for upskilling teams.)
Let's get started.
82% of decision-makers agree that technical learning resources help their organization stay ahead in AI
Cloud and the technology move so fast …
The shelf life of technology is three years so you need to always be on top and learn the new things.”
Data scientist (UK) Manufacturing company with 1,000–4,999 employees
Google/Ipsos. Cloud Learning Services Market Pulse, fielded Oct–Nov 2024. (US, UK, FR, BR, JP, AU/NZ).
5 steps for building AI Skills
Good intentions don't build skills - a clear strategy does. You need a path that turns your team's AI ambition into tangible results.
Here it is.
- Establish your AI baseline
- Put AI where your team already works
- Build a framework for trust
- Offer flexible learning
- Celebrate every learning milestone.
01 - Establish your AI baseline
Before building an AI strategy, work out where your team stands today. This will help you create a targeted plan to invest in the right skills for the right people.
A simple employee survey can help you answer critical questions like:
- What are our ambitions for AI, and how do they connect to our business goals?
- Which teams or roles are our top priority for training?
- What are our key metrics for success (e.g. productivity gains, time saved)?
- Do we have established policies to drive change management?
48% of employees rank training as the most important factor for gen AI adoption, yet nearly half feel they are receiving moderate or less support
Explore these courses
Unleash Team Potential: Assess Learning Needs Using Gen AI
Topics:
Data insights, educational evaluation, natural language processing, evidence-based practice
This course offers practical guidance on using gen AI to perform skill assessments and support career development. It empowers leaders to elevate team performance, foster talent growth, and bridge skill gaps to achieve success.
Outcome: Course completion badge
Introduction to Gen AI
Topics:
Gen AI, large language models, responsible AI
This video series explores core gen AI concepts, real-world applications of large language models, prompt tuning techniques, and responsible AI principles. From here, learners can access beginner gen AI training courses.
Outcome: 5x course completion badges
Remember to:
- Get executive support for your AI initiatives
- Define success with clear objectives and measurable key results
The challenge [with training] I think for everyone and something I’ve personally experienced, is to understand its relevance to my daily activities…the question is whether it aligns with what I’m looking for and whether I’ll actually use it.”
Security professional (France) Private infrastructure company with more than 10,000 employees
Google/Ipsos. Cloud Learning Services Market Pulse, fielded Oct–Nov 2024. (US, UK, FR, BR, JP, AU/NZ).
02 - Put AI where your team already works
The fastest way to drive adoption is to build AI into the tools your teams use every day. This way, it's easier for your people to get started, and it's easier for you to solve pain points and deliver quick wins with AI.
- Office workers can use Gemini to draft emails or build reports
- Support teams can resolve queries faster with AI agents
- Developers can use AI to write and debug code in their IDE
75% of practitioners prefer to get hands-on when it comes to AI training
Explore these courses
Introduction to Gemini for Google Workspace
Topics: Gen AI, Gemini for Google Workspace
This course explores the features of Gemini in Google Workspace, and shows how they can be used to improve productivity and efficiency.
Outcome: Course completion badge
Get started ⇾
AI Boost Bites: NotebookLM for Competitive Edge
Topics: Extracting insights with Notebook LM
This video demonstrates how to use NotebookLM to gather and analyze publicly available information, combine it with internal documents, and extract key competitive insights.
Outcome: Course Completion Badge
Remember to:
- Identify pilots that support your long-term objectives
- Provide best practice guides to accelerate AI adoption
03 - Build a framework for trust
To innovate fast, your teams need the confidence to experiment safely. A strong framework for responsible AI builds trust between you and your teams, and helps them get more from the tools they use.
Google's AI Principles offer a great starting point when developing your own framework.
- Bold innovation that solves real problems
- Develop and deploy responsibly
- Tools that benefit everyone
72% of practioners are interested in resources provided by industry experts for training on AI
Explore these courses
Introduction to Responsible AI
Topics: Strategic thinking, corporate governance, AI safety, ethical responsibility
This is an introductory-level micro learning course aimed at explaining what responsible AI is, why it's important, and how Google implements responsible AI in its products.
Outcome: Course completion badge
Introduction to Security in the World of AI
Topics: AI Security, secure AI framework, industry use cases
AI offers transformative possibilities, but also introduces new security challenges. This course equips security and data protection leaders with strategies to securely manage AI, offering a framework for proactively identifying and mitigating AI-specific risks, protecting sensitive data, ensuring compliance, and building a resilient AI infrastructure.
Outcome: Course completion badge
Remember to:
- Ensure your data is both secure and accessible to the right teams
- Establish clear governance guidelines from the start
[Google are] experts within the field. They offer a lot of insight and they’re clearly leading the way. They’re a highly reputable organization and they value innovation. We can see that within their modules. We want a personalized experience coming from people who are experts.”
VP of business development (US) Financial services company with more than 10,000 employees
Google/Ipsos. Cloud Learning Services Market Pulse, fielded Oct–Nov 2024. (US, UK, FR, BR, JP, AU/NZ).
04 - Offer flexible learning
Your team members don't just work differently, they learn differently. Some prefer a dedicated session, others learn best in 10-minute bursts between tasks, and many need hands-on practice to grasp a new concept.
66% of practitioners are going to social platforms like YouTube for cloud learning
Explore these courses
AI Boost Bites: Your Edge in the AI-Powered World
Topics: Applying AI in everyday work, AI use cases, Google's AI tools
These 10-minute sessions show how Google's experts use AI tools like Gemini, Gemini for Workspace, Notebook LM, and AI Studio-sharing proven strategies for content creation, market intelligence, and real-world business challenges.
Outcome: Deeper understanding of Google AI features and products
Develop AI-Powered Prototypes in Google AI Studio
Topics: Prompting, multimodal AI, prototyping AI apps, using API keys
In this course, learn how to craft effective prompts, leverage multimodal capabilities for image and video analysis, prototype functional AI-driven applications from templates and text prompts, and use AOI keys to build and deploy custom AI solutions.
Outcome: Course completion badge
Remember to:
- Make learning worth their time with hands-on experiences
- Offer short courses that explain things quickly and clearly
05 - Celebrate every learning milestone
Formal recognition turns a learning moment into a career achievement. Credentialing is a powerful way to validate new skills, motivate your employees, and give leaders confidence when building their teams.
88% of leaders agree that a relevant certification makes a candidate stand out
Explore these courses
Generative AI Leader
Topics: Systems integration, data management, Google Cloud services, data ingestion, data analysis, DevOps, continuous improvement process
Through a curated collection of on-demand courses, learners progress from a broad overview of gen AI to Mastering how to leverage gen AI and Google Cloud for organizational transformation.
Outcome: 5x course completion badges and certification readiness
Google Data Analytics Certificate
Topics: Data types and structures, using data to solve problems, how to analyze data, data storytelling, R programming, AI
This flexible, foundational program provides all the skills you need to gain a data analytics certificate. Gain an understanding of different skills, like how to analyze and visualize data, and how to use AI for data analytics to streamline your workflow. Learn how organizations use data to make effective decisions.
Outcome: Certificate
Skill badges serve as a nice incentive, like leveling up in a computer game, and encourage people to continue on to learn and earn.”
IT professional (US) Education company with 100–199 employees
Google/Ipsos. Cloud Learning Services Market Pulse, fielded Oct–Nov 2024. (US, UK, FR, BR, JP, AU/NZ).
