Knowing AI Is Becoming Mandatory. Whether You Like It Or Not.

I know what you might be thinking. You don’t need AI for your role right now. And maybe that’s true. But for how long?

The data is already showing a trend that will only accelerate. And here is the uncomfortable truth: at some point, you are going to need at least a basic understanding of AI whether you chose to or not.

An FT analysis found that roles requiring AI skills made up almost 7% of job postings by Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC in English-speaking countries in 2025. The majority of those roles are focused on technical skills like coding and machine learning. But what is more interesting is the growing demand for what they call softer skills, the ability to promote AI tools to clients, or to help colleagues adopt generative AI in their day-to-day work. These are not technical roles. These are human ones.

And according to McKinsey’s Agents, Robots, and Us: Skill Partnerships in the Age of AI (2025), the number of US job postings requiring AI-related skills increased by 7 percentage points between 2023 and 2025. Crucially, most of that increase happened outside STEM roles. The two skills most frequently mentioned? Using AI, leveraging tools in everyday workflows. And managing AI, leading hybrid human and machine teams. Neither of these requires a computer science degree.

So. Do you have any of this?

The Experience Problem

Here is where it gets absurd. One of the job postings mentioned in the FT analysis, from Deloitte, required eight years of experience working on AI strategy in higher education.

Eight years.

I recently saw a LinkedIn post by Naqib, who had taught himself everything he knows about AI out of pure curiosity. He had built his own agent. He understood how these systems worked at a practical level. And he still could not land the role because recruiters were asking for years of demonstrable experience in a field that, let’s be honest, barely existed in its current form until ChatGPT arrived on our computers in late 2022.

If you hear someone claiming fifteen years of experience in AI, my first instinct is to raise an eyebrow. Yes, you might find a data architect who has worked with machine learning algorithms for fifteen years. But the kind of AI we are all talking about now, generative, conversational, agentic, is four years old at most. The vast majority of people who know how to use it learned by themselves, through curiosity and experimentation, just like the rest of us.

The organisations that are currently trying to build AI teams without understanding this are making a significant mistake. If you want to hire someone who genuinely knows what they are doing with AI, look for the curious minds who taught themselves. The ones who built an agent before anyone told them to. The ones who started integrating AI into their workflows before their company had even considered buying a ChatGPT licence. Your hiring criteria need to change, because AI is unlike anything we have hired for before, and your recruitment process should reflect that.

So What Should You Do?

Having a basic understanding of what AI is, how it works, and how it can make your life and work better is becoming essential. Not because some report says so. But because the jobs you might want to access in the future will increasingly expect it, and not just the technical ones.

The good news is that you do not need eight years of experience. You do not need a computer science degree. You do not need to have built an algorithm from scratch.

You just need to start.

And if you are not sure where to start, that is exactly what I built my AI Fundamentals webinar for. One hour, plain language, no weird words or acronyms, designed for anyone who wants to understand AI and use it confidently regardless of their background. Tuesday 23rd June at 6pm. 

The AI race is already happening. Let’s get you in it.