Where AI skills are needed most

Navigating the AI talent shortage

The IT layoffs we have seen in 2024 and early 2025 are set to continue as companies look to drive efficiencies with AI, all the while bracing for a recession. This week CIO.com reported on company boards pushing CEOs to replace IT workers with AI. It’s compelling reading.  

That’s the bad news for IT professionals. But our readers wanted to understand where the opportunity lies in all this disruption. Many of them asked Smart Answers where the AI skills gap is – where are the roles going to be? 

The good news is that more than three quarters of employers say they are struggling to find the right tech talent, with roles in AI and Machine Learning most prominently cited as gaps. 

Find out: Where is the AI talent shortage most prominent now?  

Why do CISOs quit?

Staying with the challenge of hiring and retaining IT talent, this week CSO reported that more than half of department heads reporting to CISOs are looking to quit. It’s an irony that only a softening economy is keeping many of them in their jobs.  

But what about the CISOs themselves? Many readers asked Smart Answers why CISOs tend not to stay in their roles for long. Leaning into decades of human reportage our AI answer service surmises that the issues include high stress levels, personal liability and organizational distance from decision-makers. All of which would make us change jobs too.  

Find out: Why is average CISO tenure so short? 

…And why you should stop CISOs quitting

Meanwhile, here’s the problem with all of those CISOs quitting: a good CISO is worth their weight in gold. Or even more valuable than that. 

This week CSO published an article in which David Gee argued that good CISOs have highly specialized knowledge that takes significant time and investment to develop for a secure future. So you need to keep them onboard. They are hard to find.  

But why is that? Smart Answers thinks the issue is escalating cyberattacks and the growing sophistication of security threats, including AI-driven attacks, that is driving up demand. More people, with more skills, required.  

Find out: Why are cybersecurity professionals difficult to hire currently?  

About Smart Answers 

Smart Answers is an AI-based chatbot tool designed to help you discover content, answer questions, and go deep on the topics that matter to you. Each week we send you the three most popular questions asked by our readers, and the answers Smart Answers provides.  

Developed in partnership with Miso.ai, Smart Answers draws only on editorial content from our network of trusted media brands—CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World—and was trained on questions that a savvy enterprise IT audience would ask. The result is a fast, efficient way for you to get more value from our content.