CIO OPINION
When left unaddressed, skills deficits have very real commercial consequences.
Dan Reid, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Xceptor
Mind the gap: Closing Europe’ s AI skills divide
Dan Reid, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Xceptor, talks about the War-on-Talent and solutions to tackle the digital skills divide.
The European Union’ s € 1.3 billion investment in AI and digital infrastructure indicates a considerable uptick in momentum in the continent’ s broader technological trajectory. Beyond infrastructure, the funding reveals a clear intention to empower the European workforce to thrive in an age of intelligent automation and regulatory transformation.
To move forward, businesses must streamline operations, reduce reliance on manual tasks, and build leaner, smarter teams capable of adapting easily to regulatory and technological change.
Workforce readiness: The next great AI hurdle
While AI capabilities are advancing at a dizzying rate, limited internal readiness prevents many organisations from scaling adoption of the technology. Despite access to powerful tools, the persistent gap in practical AI understanding – particularly within operational teams – continues to stall implementation efforts. Moreover, with the newly enacted EU AI Act further raising the bar, organisations must act not only with speed, but with transparency, control and compliance built in from the start.
Across the continent, the lack of AI-proficient professionals is a persistent barrier to Digital Transformation. While initiatives such as the EU’ s AI Factories and Digital Innovation Hubs will expand access to AI tools, organisations must first focus inward and enable their existing staff to engage with these technologies meaningfully.
Rather than competing for a small pool of expensive data specialists, forward-looking firms are leveraging
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