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ZDNET's key takeaways
Eighty-two percent of CDOs are hiring for data roles that didn't exist last year.
Most executives are struggling to fill new data roles.
Only 26% of CDOs are confident their data is ready for AI agents.
If you want to consider how fast our world is changing, look at occupations that didn't even exist a couple of years ago, such as AI engineers, prompt engineers, quality assurance analysts for AI and large language models, generative AI data scientists, and AI agent supervisors.
These roles all have something in common: their tasks focus on assembling and confirming that the right data is in the right place for AI analysis. To this end, 82% of chief data officers responding to a new survey by the IBM Institute for Business Value said they're hiring for data roles that didn't exist last year related to generative AI, up from 60% in 2024.
Also: AI agents see explosive growth on AWS Marketplace - over 40x the team's initial targets
Such data skills are urgently needed, and the research suggests that professionals will have their work cut out for them. The IBM CDO study identified data readiness as a major issue in deploying AI and AI agents. Only 26% of CDOs were confident their data capabilities can support new AI-enabled revenue streams, the survey found. This result aligns with a recent Salesforce survey that also spotlighted this issue.
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