Good morning. For some professionals, being AI savvy could mean an increase in compensation.
PwC’s 2024 AI Jobs Barometer report, based on an analysis of over half a billion job ads from 15 countries, tracks the growth of vocations that demand specialist AI skills, such as machine learning. And sectors dominated by knowledge workers—professional services, information and communication, financial services—are experiencing surging demand for jobs requiring AI expertise.
In the U.S., these jobs carry an average wage premium of up to 25%, PwC noted. In just one example, a look at job ads for sales and marketing managers in the U.S. who need AI expertise shows wages that, on average, are 43% higher than similar jobs without AI skills. In another example, financial analysts could receive a premium of about 33%.
Financial services jobs are increasingly requiring AI skills. But it's also one of the most heavily regulated industries, so banks are taking precautions.
I recently had a conversation with executives from Citi and Morgan Stanley about the AI Readiness for Financial Services Industry Special Interest Group, or SIG, launching through the Fintech Open Source Foundation, or FINOS, a hub for open innovation in finance. The agenda included best practices in deploying generative AI.
“We’re going to look at common challenges we all face—whether it’s developing threat models, risk frameworks, mitigation of those risks—all the things that we need to address with financial services firms to onboard this technology,” Trevor Brosnan, global head of technology strategy, architecture, and modernization at Morgan Stanley, told me.
PwC's research found that growth in jobs that demand AI expertise has outpaced growth in all jobs since 2016. Meanwhile, AI-exposed occupations such as customer service and IT are still growing, but about 27% slower on average. “The data suggests that AI does not herald an era of job losses but rather more gradual jobs growth,” according to the report.
And with the wages for so many of these jobs increasing alongside the adoption of AI, so too will workers' desire to upskill.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
