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How to stop AI widening your employee skills gap

As we wrestle with fears of AI and job cuts, the issue of skill loss has escaped attention. It should be taken seriously.

Credit: Curiosity / Shutterstock

Monday morning, and your new colleague is clocking in. They’re keen, obedient, incredibly fast – and they don’t need a lunch break.

It’s 2025 and AI tools have transformed the workplace. According to McKinsey’s latest Global Survey, 72% of organisations have adopted AI in at least one business function and 65% are using generative AI regularly. And that’s just the AI they know about. Last summer, Deloitte reported that almost a third (31%) of UK employees who use GenAI for work use publicly available tools they personally pay for, and almost half (48%) use free publicly available GenAI tools.

The applications of AI at work are vast. From help with drafting emails and assisting with research to transcribing calls and developing business strategy, the opportunities are almost endless. There’s even growing talk about the ‘death of the junior developer’, as Large Language Models (LLMs) take on coding duties....