Amazon has announced today (20 November) that it plans to train over two million people globally in AI by 2025 . 

The company’s ‘AI Ready’ initiative will provide free training and courses to people without technology backgrounds to meet the rising demand for AI talent. 

One of the courses announced today is the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Generative AI Scholarship, which will be provided by online learning platform Udacity. This scholarship is targeted towards traditionally underrepresented students. 

Amazon has also collaborated with Code.org to create these courses. 

Other courses provided by Amazon will include an introduction to prompt engineering, large language model building and low-code machine learning. 

Vice president of data and AI at AWS Swami Sivasubramanian stated that AI was the most “transformative” of technologies in the modern world and that AI education must be made available to anyone with a desire to learn. 

“The goal of AI Ready is to help level the playing field of AI education,” Sivasubramanian added. 

Recent research by AWS has suggested that 73% of employers surveyed consider AI skills a priority for candidates to have. The same study also found that AI skills could increase a worker’s salary by around 40%. 

This results have been reflected in an independent study by the Oxford Internet Institute in October. 

Research company GlobalData has consistently found that AI is considered the most disruptive technology across sectors in their surveys from 2021 to 2023. 

In its recent executive briefing on AI, GlobalData found that generative AI was the fastest growing technology of 2023 and is set to imminently disrupt businesses across every sector. 

Whilst current generative AI stands at about 80% accuracy, GlobalData forecasts that 99% accuracy could be achieved within a decade.