Bridging the AI Skills Gap: Strategies to Upskill Before It's Too Late
Key Highlights
- The rapid evolution of AI is creating a significant skills gap, leaving businesses and marketers to adapt quickly or risk being left behind.
- Organizations often fail to provide adequate AI training and safe environments for employees to experiment, which hinders the effective adoption and use of AI tools.
- Leadership commitment is critical for successful AI integration. Leaders must encourage teams to embrace AI while dispelling myths and reassuring employees about job security.
- Ethics, transparency and accuracy are essential when using AI. Organizations and employees need to communicate AI’s role in their work and diligently check outputs for reliability.
When email first appeared in the 1980s, many were skeptical that businesses would use it to send sensitive information when they could fax it instead.
Are you shaking your head yet? AI is having a similar moment, with some people taking to the technology to find creative solutions while others avoid it, afraid it will take their jobs.
As AI quickly evolves from chatbots to agentic systems that complete tasks, marketers cannot afford to ignore it, experts at the intersections of business, marketing and AI said.
“It’s like trying to fight a tsunami. It will be integrated into everything that your teams are using,” said Jen Leonard, founder of Creative Lawyers, who designs AI training and workshops for law firms and businesses.
But with the technology evolving faster than ethics, governance and culture, the rapid advancement of AI raises questions about how to close the skills gap while being mindful of the shortcomings and concerns that come with it.
The year of divergence
For marketers, AI is often useful for spurring creativity and creating efficiencies. As an assistant, AI can review transcripts or act as a sounding board to determine whether your PowerPoint answers all the questions that would be asked. AI can develop infographics, help devise campaigns, run numbers, be a sounding board for practicing pitches by asking what approach to take in a particular situation, and develop questions the client is likely to have.
That’s just the beginning. As AI continues to evolve, those who use and learn AI have the upper hand in understanding how it works, which helps them do their jobs and serve clients.
Those who don’t use AI risk being left behind, creating a skills gap at a time when AI is transforming the workforce.
Leonard believes 2026 is the “year of divergence,” where organizations that have been building a muscle for using AI will pull ahead of those that either haven’t dipped their toe in at all or are just now getting started.
The biggest differentiator for AI-forward adoption is whether the leader is all in.
Closing the skills gap
Organizations generally spend too little time training their teams on AI or helping them learn to use the tools in ways tailored to their roles. Those that do provide training often don’t give their employees enough time to play with it in a safe environment without worrying about confidentiality or security, Leonard said.
“You have to be continuously focused on it, helping people understand how it can augment their human skills, helping people feel less afraid [and] dissolving some myths around AI,” she said.
She suggests training sessions that use hypothetical scenarios so teams can play with AI together and share their progress without feeling restricted.
The biggest differentiator for AI-forward adoption is whether the leader is all in, Leonard said. Unless they are trumpeting this as a new era and urging everyone to get on board to figure it out together, she finds that most AI initiatives don’t gain traction. Leadership also needs to send a message that learning AI will not mean the elimination of their jobs, but figuring out how to do their jobs better.
But they can only say that if that’s true. AI could lead to a smaller marketing department by taking on the lower-level work of writing the first draft of a press release or a new business pitch, said Deborah Farone, a marketing and business development strategist who spent two decades as CMO for major New York law firms.
Those who use AI and learn to finish projects faster will also come to find they have more time for one-on-one conversations with clients and connections teams to help optimize their performance, she said.
AI skills will also shape how companies hire people in the future. Whether you’re hiring or looking to switch companies, AI skills will help employees become more competitive in a workforce constantly evolving with new technology.
Action items:
- When training teams on AI, provide a safe environment for employees to play with AI using hypothetical scenarios without jeopardizing confidential information.
- Leaders should be enthusiastic and patient during the adoption process.
- Ask AI how it devised the response it gave you and cite its sources. Investigate those sources to ensure accuracy and integrity.
Ethics, transparency and checking your work
If you’re using AI to create something for your client, you need to let them know, Farone said. This builds client confidence in a world where human connection is key.
“You have to have a lot of integrity with saying when it’s helping you and when it's not,” she said about AI. “Clients want to know how their work is being done. I don't want to say that these are my ideas if my ideas are coming directly from AI. I need to be very ethical about it, because all I have is my reputation in the end.”
AI is not perfect. Like any source, it should be checked for accuracy. AI can pull information from third-party internet sources that you would never rely on if searching yourself or present copyrighted material.
Farone also suggested asking AI how it came up with the response it gave you and what its source was.
“We have to be careful, especially at this stage, on what we're depending on as fact, and knowing that it's really a fact,” Farone said.
Jen Leonard founded Creative Lawyers to support law firms, corporate legal departments, and other professional services organizations that understand the urgency to modernize practice, services and education. Jen works with leaders to cultivate innovative cultures, build nimble and collaborative strategies to navigate a volatile environment, and promote skills and mindsets that drive change. She develops cutting-edge generative AI education focused on law firm business and lawyer formation implications, leads design thinking workshops, facilitates innovation challenges, delivers retreat keynotes, and provides ongoing strategic support for her clients.
Deborah Farone has served as chief marketing officer at two of the world’s most successful law firms, Debevoise & Plimpton and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where in both instances, she was the first person hired to build a firm-wide marketing program. Today, through Farone Advisors, Deborah works with law firm leaders, GCs, marketing teams and high-performing partners to achieve their goals.
Her new book, "Breaking Ground: How Successful Women Lawyers Build Thriving Practices," is based on 60+ interviews with top women rainmakers and general counsel across four continents. The book explores how they win business, build trust, lead teams and stay authentic — and how firms can create cultures where that success is possible.
About the Author
Andrea Zelinski
Contributor
Andrea Zelinski is an award-winning freelance journalist with a passion for translating complex issues, trends and strategies into clear, engaging content to help people improve their businesses and their lives.
She spent 15 years as a political reporter covering state governments in Illinois, Tennessee and Texas, reporting from the halls of state capitols for publications including Texas Monthly, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. In 2021, she shifted her focus to business journalism, joining Travel Weekly as senior cruise editor, where she covered the travel industry’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
When not reporting, Andrea is probably hiking. Known for embracing ambitious challenges, she hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 2020 and the Pacific Crest Trail in 2025.
Resources
Quiz
Your Competitive Edge, DeliveredElevate your strategy with weekly insights from marketing leaders who are redefining engagement and growth. From campaign best practices to creative innovation and data-driven trends, MarketingEDGE delivers the ideas and inspiration you need to outperform your competition.
