It’s not just Big Tech: Top employers from Pepsi to Kaiser Permanente are getting in on the AI race too

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Zooming In

A deep-dive into one big theme or news story every week.

While hiring continues to be resilient in the current economy, layoffs still persist. Just this week, Facebook parent company Meta began laying off staff as part of its latest round of job cuts.

Amid this lingering uncertainty, it can get tricky for workers to chart out their careers. The one area that data shows they can bet on? AI skills.

As the technology quickly permeates industries and business functions across the board and leads to a burgeoning job market, it’s also making waves among LinkedIn’s annual Top Companies U.S. list , a data-driven ranking of the 50 best organizations for career growth.

Artificial intelligence is listed as one of the most notable skills across seven companies on the list, including 谷歌 parent Alphabet Inc. , 苹果 , Atlassian and IBM . But it’s not just technology companies that prize robust AI skills in the current environment. Even banks like Capital One list AI as one of their in-demand skills.

Some top companies, such as 安永 and 塔塔咨询服务公司 , explicitly list artificial intelligence as one of their top three hiring priorities. For others, it’s more of an in-demand skill that’s additive to other roles across data, development or software engineering.

For example, State Farm lists AI-adjacent data-driven decision making as a notable skill, whereas 利乐 mentions robotics . The softer, adjacent field of human computer interaction (HCI) is another skill that some of these companies are looking for.

What’s more, companies also say they are tapping into AI to transform their businesses in various ways. When asked to assess AI’s impact in a survey:

• Nearly 70% of Top Company respondents agreed with the statement that “AI is already helping us be faster, smarter and more”
• Over 30% said that “AI’s current impact is small, but we expect larger gains over the next five years”?
• And not a single respondent agreed with the statement that “AI is not a major factor on our horizon.”

In terms of use cases, 亚马逊 has been employing machine learning to continuously improve its homepage personalization and power its voice assistant Alexa for years. 百事 has used AI to ensure consistency in its Cheetos cheese puffs, making sure they all have the same texture, crunch and shape. And 富国银行 has used it to streamline the experience on its mobile app.

Companies are also starting to take advantage of advances in areas from image recognition to predictive analytics to enhance their businesses.

Kaiser Permanente , for example, says it’s using AI to support its clinicians screening mammograms and diabetes, while Boeing says it’s bringing machine learning to unpiloted military planes that can plan and adjust their own routes. Tata Consultancy Services, on the other hand, says that it’s upskilling employees through an AI-powered personalized learning program.

See the full list here

This Week in AI

Here’s where we bring you up-to-speed with the latest advancements from the world of AI.

• 谷歌 is racing to upgrade its search engine with artificial intelligence features and to build a brand-new one based on the technology, as a growing cohort of AI-powered rivals threaten its core business. Google could add new AI tools to search next month, according to an internal planning document seen by 纽约时报 .
• In a long-awaited interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk said he will launch an artificial intelligence platform called "TruthGPT" to challenge the offerings from LinkedIn parent 微软 and Google. He criticized ChatGPT maker OpenAI of "training the AI to lie" and accused Google co-founder Larry Page of not taking AI safety seriously.
• Adobe announced several new video features coming to its Firefly suite of generative AI tools later this year. Adobe is also releasing tools that help users with other steps along the way, including adding sound, music, graphics and animated fonts.
• Stability AI , the company behind the AI image generator Stable Diffusion, announced a new open-source large language model this week. The news comes following a report by SEMAFOR that the company is burning through cash and has been slow to generate revenue.
• Atlassian has launched Atlassian Intelligence , a new AI-powered virtual assistant in its Jira and Confluence products.
• ChatGPT can now interpret stock moves. Not only was the AI chatbot able to distinguish between “hawkish” or “dovish” statements by the Federal Reserve, it successfully determined whether headlines were good or bad for a particular stock, according to two academic papers .?
• AI is also starting to make inroads in the worlds of photography and music. The winner of a prestigious photography competition admitted that his submission was actually created by an artificial intelligence system , while elsewhere, an AI-generated song featuring clones of Drake and The Weeknd has gone viral .

TechTok?

Catch up on the tech headlines you may have missed this week and what our members are saying about them on LinkedIn.

• Meta has begun laying off staff as part of its latest round of job cuts , the company confirms. Employees in fields like software engineering, graphics programming and gameplay development were among those affected Wednesday, according to LinkedIn posts.
• More than 3 million people have signed up for Snap Inc. 's fledgling subscription service, the company announced at its annual Partner Summit on Wednesday. Snapchat+ is a key part of the company’s efforts to expand its revenue beyond digital advertising, which provides users early access to features such as My AI, the company’s new chatbot.
• Reddit, Inc. announced this week that it plans to start charging companies for access to its application programming interface. Part of what makes its API valuable is that conversations happening among Reddit's 57 million daily users contain large language models (LLMs) that have helped produce AI tech like ChatGPT.
• 苹果 has taken another big step into the banking space, rolling out a high-yield savings account for Apple Card customers. Launched in partnership with Goldman Sachs, the account currently has an annual percentage yield of 4.15% – above the 0.35% national average APY on savings accounts, but similar to rates at some online banks, credit unions and traditional banks.
• Montana is one step closer to becoming the first state to ban TikTok outright. Last week, lawmakers approved a bill that would make it illegal to download the app or even have it available for download from any app store.
• Big Tech workers are migrating to other industries and to smaller tech companies, new data shows. With layoffs heavily impacting tech's behemoths, ex-staffers have begun transitioning to sectors such as green energy or AI, according to Revelio Labs .

Movers and Shakers

Here’s keeping tabs on key executives on the move and other big pivots in the tech industry. Please send me personnel moves within emerging tech.

• Splunk has hired Google, HP and Visa veteran Min Wang as its chief technology officer.
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that its chief of staff, Kiersten E. Todt , is returning to the private sector and will be replaced by Kathryn C. , currently a deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security .
• Founders Fund has hired Joey Krug , former co-CIO of crypto investment firm Pantera Capital , as a partner.
• Meta has re-hired a veteran manager, Nick Grudin , to oversee its relationships with media companies and other creators , just seven months after he quit to join NFT startup Dapper Labs .
• Netflix has hired longtime Halo franchise developer Joseph Staten to build a new big-budget multiplatform original game, as the streaming giant continues to expand into the industry.

ICYMI

Here are other top stories of the week from beyond LinkedIn in the broader world of tech.

• Inside the rise and fall of Kittyhawk, the secretive flying-car startup launched by Google co-founder Larry Page.
• How Mexico became the biggest user of the world’s most notorious spy tool, Pegasus.?
• Event ticketing company SeatGeek has confidentially filed for an initial public offering with regulators this month.

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