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Most employees lack skills to use AI at work as leaders overestimate readiness, Skillsoft finds

Its report found a 53-point gap between employees and leaders on AI readiness, with 86% of employees using AI tools but just 24% feeling fully prepared. 

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Most employees lack skills to use AI at work as leaders overestimate readiness, Skillsoft finds
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Skillsoft has reported that only one in four employees feel equipped to use artificial intelligence (AI) effectively at work. 

The Skillsoft Workforce Readiness Report found a 53-point gap between employees and leaders on AI readiness, with 86% of employees using AI tools but just 24% feeling fully prepared. 

While 77% of leaders believe their organisations have set employees up for success, most employees said they lacked the necessary skills, training, and governance to use AI confidently.

The report found that only 11% of employees received formal skills assessments. 

Just 16% received training before new AI tools were introduced and less than one in 10 said their organisation had comprehensive AI governance. 

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Most employees reported uncertainty about which skills matter for their role, and only 28% strongly agreed their job description matched their day-to-day work.

Nearly one in three employees expect AI to reduce entry-level positions, while 36% expect more focus on problem solving and collaboration. 

45% of employees and 46% of leaders said training is primarily about building confidence in their current role.

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Ciara Harrington, chief people officer at Skillsoft, said: “Organisations cannot afford to confuse AI adoption with AI readiness. 

“When leaders and employees are operating from fundamentally different views of preparedness, performance becomes inconsistent at best and untrustworthy at worst. 

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“Closing that gap starts with treating skills as a business discipline and building the systems to align skill supply with evolving demand across the organisation.”

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Harrington added: “Most organisations have established processes for hiring, onboarding, and performance management, but our research shows many still struggle to bring that same rigour to understanding what skills they have, building the ones they need, and deploying them where demand is greatest.

“The organisations that pull ahead won’t be the ones that adopted AI first. 

“They’ll be the ones that redesigned work and built a system to continuously develop the skills required to leverage AI in a way that drives purposeful business outcomes.”

She said: “Traditional workforce systems help organisations manage employee records and workforce processes. 

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“What’s often missing is a continuous view of workforce capability, including what skills exist, what skills are needed, how quickly those gaps can be closed, and the impact they have on the business. 

“Without that visibility, leaders are forced to make workforce decisions based on assumptions rather than evidence.”

She added: “That means moving from one-time training to continuous capability development and from ad hoc governance to a company-wide standard.”

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