How Gen AI Is Redefining the Role of Technologists

Continuous learning boosts critical thinking and innovation, empowering technologies to drive business modernization.

Sep. 19, 2024 | By Armando Franco and Alvaro Albanez

In this digital age, technologists constantly learn and adapt to the latest technologies. With AI systems and infrastructure evolving every few months, technologists and companies must keep up or fall behind. This rings especially true for one of today’s latest tech advancements at the forefront of modern application design. It’s also the top technology investment among IT leaders. You guessed it: generative AI (Gen AI).

As a result, the role of a technologist has significantly evolved in just a matter of years. So how can they keep up? By fostering a continuous learning culture. Ongoing training and development are crucial to creating a proactive approach to innovation through Gen AI. To stay competitive in the digital-centered marketplace, technologists and organizations should focus on Gen AI skills-learning.

Adapting to New Technologies

The internet was brand-new to the marketplace only decades ago. Predating the early days of search engines—before you could “Ask Jeeves”—technologists needed to build their foundational knowledge without getting quick answers from the internet.

Now, more than ever, technologists are adapting to the fast-paced evolution of new tools like Gen AI to stay competitive with their skills and maintain relevance in their organizations. The first iteration of what we now call Gen AI was created by technologists leveraging available tools to build new applications independent of legacy systems and platforms. The introduction of cloud technologies and tools enabled technologists to search for and integrate information into modern technology stacks.

The emergence of Gen AI reflects the culmination of all knowledge that existed before Google, Stack Overflow, GitHub and other communities of developers—where prompting engineering was born.

Innovation and the Evolution of Technologies: Opportunities Ahead

AI innovation is rapidly evolving, raising the urgency for companies to keep up with technology modernization and find or develop top talent to drive those efforts.

Tools like ChatGPT are forcing technologists to examine fact from fiction on tech platforms. AI bots need to be monitored for hallucinations (when the AI model generates illogical, misleading or false content that isn’t based on its training data). Gen AI technology has contextual limitations in showcasing emotional awareness, such as responding to sarcastic or emotionally charged prompts, so outputs must be cross-referenced with reliable sources to ensure accuracy and validity.

Regardless, there’s demand across most industries to balance innovation and productization for those services in the marketplace with Gen AI. Technologists are optimistic and eager to prove the value of continued innovation with Gen AI technology, which includes the following:

• Automate routine tasks so technologists can focus on problem-solving and creativity.
• Revolutionize how organizations identify solutions. Gen AI tracks search engine use on context and frequency (popularity of a keyword or phrase) for faster feedback loops on any topic, coding problem or technology initiative.Accelerate business agility to deliver services and gain competitive advantage.
• Inspire and grow a culture of continuous learning. Organizations can facilitate this with smart skills development investments in their engineering teams to develop Gen AI products.
• Improve customer service options using Gen AI tools and chatbots.
• Drive business modernization internally and for customer acquisition. This can help organizations to expand nationally and internationally.

Empower Your Workforce

Internally, organizations and technologists should upskill to stay relevant and competitive. By prioritizing workforce development programs, tech leaders can align new technologies (like Gen AI) with the skills needed. Organizations can then balance AI’s strengths with irreplaceable human capabilities like critical thinking and creativity.

Gen AI does have its limitations, including experience, interpersonal communication and limited creativity. Hence, people-savvy leadership remains crucial for every organization. All organizations have the onus to set the example of lifelong learning for technologists through workforce development programs. Grow top talent with sharper critical thinking skills to enable modernization and expand industry opportunities.

Balance Innovation With Risk Management

Every person has millions of personal data points in cyberspace that require protection from malicious threats. And although large corporations spend billions on IT, many are hesitant to move data from on-premises mainframes to the cloud out of fear of uncertainty. For Gen AI models to be effective, their efficacy, accuracy and data integrity are essential. Data governance can help to ensure security for growing data. Once data is secured on the cloud, technologists could use Gen AI to augment the business and provide more innovation.

The goal is to provide newer, safer, sustainable and cost-effective technologies, equipping technologists with the right skill sets to earn the organization confidence, trust and respect in the marketplace.

Future-Forward Approach

The most successful technologists prioritize cultivating a continuous learning culture to grow their skills and expand their careers. Perhaps more importantly, organizations should provide real-world learning opportunities in emerging technology programs.

Strategic leaders and technologists leverage tools and learning opportunities to stay agile in today’s marketplace. Workforce development solutions and technology operations management for Gen AI tools can accelerate productivity and build opportunity. The future of technology lies in creativity, flexibility and development of a culture of continuous learning to drive business growth.