Amazon to provide free artificial intelligence (AI) skills training and education

Amazon yesterday announced the launch of AI Ready, a new initiative to provide free artificial intelligence (AI) skills training and education to 2 million people globally by 2025. The initiative will include new courses, learning initiatives, and scholarships to help people of all backgrounds learn about AI and prepare for the future of work.

“Artificial intelligence is the most transformative technology of our generation,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Data and AI at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “If we are going to unlock the full potential of AI to tackle the world’s most challenging problems, we need to make AI education accessible to anyone with a desire to learn.”

Key highlights of the AI Ready initiative include:

• Eight new, free AI and generative AI courses aligned with in-demand jobs, ranging from foundational to advanced, for business leaders and technologists.
• AWS Generative AI Scholarship program with Udacity to provide scholarships to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underserved and underrepresented communities globally.
• Collaboration with Code.org to launch Hour of Code Dance Party: AI Edition, an hour-long introduction to coding and AI for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

AI Courses for business and nontechnical audiences

• Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence provides an introduction to generative AI, its applications, and need-to-know concepts, like foundation models. Find it on AWS Educate.
• Generative AI Learning Plan for Decision Makers is a three-course series covering how to plan a generative AI project and build a generative AI–ready organization. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.
• Introduction to Amazon CodeWhisperer teaches participants how to use Amazon’s AI code generator, which produces whole lines of code. Find it on AWS Educate.

AI Courses for developer and technical audiences

• Foundations of Prompt Engineering introduces the basics of prompt engineering, the practice of designing inputs for generative AI tools, all the way through to advanced prompt techniques. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.
• Low-Code Machine Learning on AWS explores how to prepare data, train machine learning models, and deploy machine learning models, with minimal coding and without deep knowledge of machine learning. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.
• Building Language Models on AWS covers how to use Amazon SageMaker distributed training libraries to build language models and how to fine-tune open source and foundation models. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.
• Amazon Transcribe—Getting Started explores how to use Amazon Transcribe, a fully managed AI service that converts speech to text using automatic speech recognition technology. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.
• Building Generative AI Applications Using Amazon Bedrock teaches how to use Amazon Bedrock to build generative AI applications. Find it on AWS Skill Builder.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will transform the workplace in five ways

A new study by Access Partnership and Amazon Web Services (AWS) has found that AI is already transforming the workplace and will continue to do so in the years to come.

According to the study, 92% of organizations plan to use AI-powered solutions by 2028. AI will be used to automate tasks, improve workflows, enhance communications, and help employees learn new skills.

Here are five ways AI will transform the workplace:

1. AI will automate tasks. AI will be used to automate many of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that employees currently do. This will free up employees to focus on more creative and strategic work.
2. AI will improve workflows. AI will be used to improve workflows by identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies. This will help organizations to get work done faster and more efficiently.
3. AI will enhance communications. AI will be used to enhance communications by translating languages, summarizing text, and analyzing sentiment. This will help organizations to communicate more effectively with customers, partners, and employees.
4. AI will help employees learn new skills. AI will be used to help employees learn new skills by providing personalized training and feedback. This will help organizations to develop a more skilled and adaptable workforce.
5. AI will create new jobs. AI will create new jobs in fields such as data science, machine learning, and AI ethics. This will help to offset the jobs that are lost to automation.

Overall, the study found that AI has the potential to transform the workplace in a number of ways. Organizations that are able to adopt AI will be able to improve their productivity, efficiency, and innovation. The study also found that employers expect their workers to earn up to 47% more in salaries if they upskill in AI.