IDC Briefing: Close the AI Skills Gap | Live Webinar

Is your organization winning the AI skilling race? As a talent leader, you're at the center of one of business's biggest challenges: building AI-ready workforces fast enough to keep pace with the inevitable change. The organizations that get this right aren't just training employees, they're fundamentally reshaping how upskilling drives business outcomes, retention, and competitive advantage.

According to IDC, more than 90% of organizations worldwide will face widening skills shortages by 2026, driven largely by the pace of AI adoption and transformation. While investment in AI skilling continues to rise, many enterprises still lack clear visibility into workforce capabilities, directly impacting productivity, competitiveness, and workforce mobility. 

This 45-minute IDC research briefing brings together analyst insight, enterprise employer perspective, and learning execution leadership to help L&D and Benefits leaders understand what’s actually working, and what must change to build sustainable AI readiness at scale.

Join Gina Smith (IDC Research Director), Mark Rudnick (Guild L&D Leader), and Krishna Kumar (Simplilearn CEO) for a candid discussion on how organizations are shifting from training programs to skills-driven benefits strategies that improve retention, mobility, and measurable business impact.

Who Should Attend?

This session is designed for leaders responsible for workforce capability, employee value proposition, and talent ROI, including:

• Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs)
• Chief Learning Officers (CLOs)
• VPs of Talent Development
• L&D Directors and Benefits Leaders
• Workforce Mobility and HR Strategy Leads
• Tuition Assistance Program Managers
• Employee Experience and Total Rewards Leaders

If you influence how learning is funded, positioned, or tied to career outcomes, this session is for you.

Why Attend

AI upskilling is no longer just a learning initiative; it is a core enterprise priority and a strategic lever for workforce readiness.

IDC research shows that organizations making progress on AI readiness are:

• Aligning AI learning investments with workforce mobility, retention, and business outcomes
• Building AI readiness through a combination of technical, human, and applied skills
• Using education benefits as a scalable mechanism to accelerate enterprise-wide AI adoption

This session delivers independent research insights, real enterprise perspectives, and a practical framework to help you shape AI workforce strategy and guide 2026 planning.

What You’ll Learn

• IDC’s 2025 cross-industry findings on AI skills: where enterprises are making progress, and where critical gaps remain heading into 2026
• How leading employers are scaling AI skilling across the workforce, not just within technical teams
• Why applied, certification-based, and experiential learning accelerates AI time-to-productivity compared to content-only approaches
• How sustainable AI readiness requires both technical and human skills, supported by continuous skills assessment
• IDC’s 2026 readiness framework: how to build visibility into AI capabilities to support workforce mobility, retention, and future-ready talent strategies

Featured Speakers

Dr. Gina Smith, Ph.D. 

Research Director, IT Skills for Digital Business | International Data Corporation (IDC)

Dr. Smith leads IDC's research on digital skills transformation and workforce readiness. She advises Fortune 500 companies and government organizations on building future-ready talent strategies in an AI-driven economy.

Mark Rudnick

VP, Learning Partnerships | Guild 

VP of Learning Partnerships at Guild, where he works with leading employers to design and scale education benefit strategies that drive workforce mobility, retention, and business impact. Mark brings deep experience partnering with enterprise HR, L&D, and Benefits leaders to align learning investments with measurable talent outcomes.

Krishna Kumar 

Chief Executive Officer | Simplilearn

Krishna leads Simplilearn's mission to help millions of professionals acquire digital and AI skills. Under his leadership, Simplilearn has partnered with Microsoft, Google, AWS, and leading universities to deliver outcome-oriented learning to 8M+ learners and 500+ enterprises worldwide.

Save your seat – registration is required to access the recording.

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