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Forbes
16-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI Is Changing Talent Management—Here's What To Watch For
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes AI will create many new job opportunities. (Photo by Patrick T. ... More Fallon / AFP via Getty Images) Whether AI will create millions of jobs or drive mass unemployment is still hotly debated—most recently by the Chief Executive Officers of two technology giants, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. What is not debated, however, is AI's disruptive effect on the talent landscape. Tech firms' aggressive recruiting of AI talent is perhaps best exemplified by Meta's reported $300 million pay packages. Microsoft's layoffs, which appeared to coincide with AI investments, illustrate how talent needs can shift. AI's talent impact goes way beyond tech firms. Most employers (69%) are planning to hire for skills in designing AI tools and enhancements to support business goals, especially in big data, network, cybersecurity and technological literacy, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs 2025 report. Given the increasingly strategic importance of talent and talent management, here are four questions to assess your firm's understanding of AI's talent implications. What Is Our AI Readiness? People vary widely on how they perceive AI's impact on their career prospects. In turn, this may affect employees' motivation to gain AI proficiency. For example, only 36% of women (versus 45% of men) believe that AI can help their careers. Viewing AI as an obstacle, rather than an avenue, for job security and career advancement could foster resistance to developing technical literacy. Ambiguity around the rules for using AI and perceptions of AI's trustworthiness can also undermine adoption as well. People who are more likely to follow rules may hesitate to use AI absent clear guidance for when and where its use is allowed. Hesitation may also be tied to doubts about AI's capabilities—to make unbiased recommendations and assessments, for example. Understanding who sees AI as a career asset—and who doesn't—may be a good starting place to determine a talent pool's AI readiness. Assessing the clarity of AI usage rules and trust issues is another way to gain insight into employees' readiness to adopt AI. How Will Non-AI Skills Needs Change? Adopting AI tools to replace some skills may increase the demand for other, more human skills. For example, 65% of workers would prefer AI to track their performance and 55% would welcome AI's help to manage deadlines. But over 85% say they much prefer that a human manager motivates, recognizes, empathizes and validates them, according to a survey of 512 employees, conducted by Better Up Labs and Stanford's Social Media Lab. Ethics and creativity are other skills that are likely to emerge as increasingly critical, according to research from MIT, which analyzed the removal, continuation, or addition of job tasks in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' database of occupations between 2016 and 2024. Most employers expect to transform their workforce to better work alongside AI: 77% are planning to reskill or upskill their existing workforce, while 62% anticipate hiring new people for this, according to the WEF's Future of Jobs Report. How Will AI Impact Succession Planning? To be able to effectively understand, anticipate and manage AI risks, leadership teams need the appropriate talent. Over half (54%) of CEOs view AI and related technologies as threats to their business, according to a Russell Reynolds report. The risk is especially high around cybersecurity. AI's growing role in strategic planning makes it imperative to revisit leadership talent needs, identification and development. The more AI becomes central to strategic decision making, the more important it is for leadership pipelines and succession planning to reflect this shift. Your AI leadership and talent pipeline should reflect AI's centrality to your business strategy—fundamentally changing your products and services, versus supporting your operations. In this evolving environment, there is no set formula or defined role. Some firms will have chief AI officers. But other AI roles abound. They may include AI transformation leader, for enterprise-wide transformation, AI product leader, to push a specific AI offering; or AI innovation leader, to understand and develop AI possibilities across the business, according to Russell Reynolds. What Are Liabilities From AI Job Displacements? Because of disparities in gender and racial or ethnic representation across a wide range of occupations, replacing people with AI could disproportionally affect protected classes of employees in some jobs. For example, because AI is increasingly used to automate customer service jobs, retail roles, and warehouse jobs, Black and Latino workers, who tend to be overrepresented in those jobs, may be especially likely to be let go. A similar effect is expected in some of the jobs where women tend to be clustered, like cashiers, secretaries and bookkeeping clerks, which AI is poised to more readily replace. Disparate impact—when a seemingly neutral employment decision negatively affects people in a protected class category like gender, race, age, national origin—that results from AI-based employment decisions can become a liability. To minimize exposure, firms may want to ensure that introducing AI to replace employees in specific roles is a business necessity. They may also want to explore less discriminatory alternatives. How AI might affect strategy is a topic of discussion in many boardrooms. Most firms anticipate they will need AI skills to address the disruptions and opportunities it brings. But AI is likely to have broader consequences for the firm's entire talent pool, forcing hard questions about who gets reskilled, hired, or fired. Companies that ask—and effectively answer these questions—are likely to navigate these disruptions more smoothly and be best prepared for the future.


Los Angeles Times
01-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Employers say AI skills aren't just for tech majors anymore. How colleges are responding
By the time Christian Vivas enrolled in a new artificial intelligence program at Miami Dade College, he had already experimented with using ChatGPT to help him write emails to clients of the creative media studio he owns. Vivas, 37, said most of his classmates were like him — adults well into their careers looking to learn how to use AI, or use it better. Thanks to his classes, Vivas, who has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, has advanced way beyond using ChatGPT. He now employs AI in nearly every aspect of his work: generating images, videos, marketing plans and social media captions. 'It's integrated very deeply into our business now,' Vivas said. As generative AI technology is rapidly changing the labor market, employers are increasingly seeking AI skills for positions outside the technology sector, such as in healthcare, hospitality and media. To keep up, students are looking for ways to boost their AI skills and make themselves more marketable amid growing concerns that AI will replace humans in the workforce. There's evidence to suggest artificial intelligence may have already replaced some jobs. Entry-level positions are particularly at risk of being replaced by AI, a report from Oxford Economics shows. A global survey of more than 1,000 large businesses showed 41% expect to reduce their workforces within five years because of AI. But most companies — 77% — also plan to train their employees to 'better work alongside AI,' according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report in January. Last year, the number of online job postings that included generative AI as a desired skill grew 323%, to more than 66,000 from fewer than 16,000, according to a report from the labor analytics company Lightcast. Colleges are also motivated by these trends: They're adding AI to their course catalogs, and individual professors are altering lessons to include AI skill building. Miami Dade College, for example, debuted its artificial intelligence certificate program in 2023, just over a month after ChatGPT was unveiled. The program offers classes in machine learning, ethics and natural language programming, among other courses. Since rolling out the certificate program, the school has added associate and bachelor's degree programs in applied AI. 'We started developing this idea around the application of AI — how you can apply AI, how can you learn AI at a community college — where it is open to everyone, not just to a few who can get a master's or PhD,' said Antonio Delgado, vice president of innovation and technology partnerships at Miami Dade College. In 2022, the college also created Miami Tech Works, an organization that helps tech companies find skilled workers. Recently, more businesses outside tech have reached out to hire people who know how to use AI. Miami Dade College's programs have attracted students such as Vicky Cheung, who decided to enroll in the college's artificial intelligence awareness certificate program in 2024, after she was let go from the Miami hospital where she had worked for more than two decades. Cheung, who already had a bachelor's in business and a master's in health management, was looking into resume-building courses. She believes her AI courses, coupled with her work experience, helped her land her new job analyzing how to improve processes and workflow at a different hospital. Enrolling in the program showed employers 'that I'm trying to find a way to improve my skill sets,' she said. Schools across the country have announced programs similar to the one at Miami Dade College: courses in artificial intelligence in business settings and minors in AI marketed to students who are not computer science majors. But higher education institutions are not inherently nimble — and the technology is evolving quickly. Because generative AI is changing so rapidly, there's no one curriculum or credential schools are using, or can look to, as a guidepost. What these lessons look like and the rules about how students should use AI vary by institution, or even classroom to classroom. 'The problem we have is that AI is changing industries so fast that the textbooks, the curriculum — by the time you get it approved, it's relevant, but it's outdated,' said Josh Jones, chief executive of QuantHub, a company that works with schools including the University of Alabama and Emory University to add AI lessons. There are downsides for using generative AI as well — students can use the technology to cheat on assignments and some studies indicate college students who use AI on assignments are less engaged with their lessons and use it to jettison critical thinking. Higher education institutions acknowledge the risks, but also the need to prepare for students for the working world. For Derrick Anderson, who teaches public affairs at Arizona State University and is senior vice president at the American Council on Education, it's simple: If AI is a tool students will use at jobs, they should learn how to use it in his classroom. 'Because I'm preparing them for the job market, they need to know how to use generative AI ethically, but efficiently and effectively,' Anderson said. Now, instead of having students write an essay at the end of one of his public affairs courses, Anderson has them produce a video with the help of ChatGPT. One student in Anderson's class created a video about new technology that mimics the human brain. In the video, the student narrates as an AI-generated image of a model brain spins on the screen. Previously, one of Anderson's class assignments required students to write a memo; now, they have to write four different kinds of memos using ChatGPT and describe scenarios where they would be appropriate. 'It's a fundamentally different exercise that involves a much larger volume of content because content is so much easier to create,' Anderson said. The students in his classes have used their AI videos and projects in their portfolios when looking for jobs to show they have experience with these programs, even if they lack a specific degree or credential. Employers are looking for those kinds of demonstrable examples of AI skills from graduates, said Ken Finneran, vice president of human resources at the digital healthcare company eMed. Every department at eMed, from marketing to human resources to finance, uses generative artificial intelligence tools in some way, said Finneran, and the company expects prospective employees to have foundational knowledge of AI. This story was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

Miami Herald
19-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
To employers, AI skills aren't just for tech majors anymore
By the time Christian Vivas enrolled in a new artificial intelligence program at Miami Dade College, he had already experimented with using ChatGPT to help him write emails to clients of the creative media studio he owns. Vivas said most of his classmates were like him - adults well into their careers looking to learn how to use AI, or use it better. Thanks to his classes, Vivas, who is 37 and has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, has gone way beyond using ChatGPT. He now employs AI in nearly every aspect of his work: generating images, videos, marketing plans, social media captions. "It's integrated very deeply into our business now," Vivas said. Generative AI technology is rapidly changing the labor market. Employers are increasingly posting job listings that include AI skills for positions even outside of the technology sector, such as in health care, hospitality and media. To keep up, students are increasingly looking for ways to boost their AI skills and make themselves more marketable at a time when there's growing fear that AI will replace humans in the workforce. And their concerns are justified: There's evidence to suggest artificial intelligence may have already replaced some jobs. Entry-level positions are particularly at risk of being replaced by AI, a report from Oxford Economics shows, and the unemployment rate for recent college graduates jumped to nearly 6 percent in March, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A global survey of more than 1,000 large businesses showed 41 percent expect to reduce their workforces within five years because of AI. But most companies - 77 percent - also plan to train their employees to "better work alongside AI," according to the World Economic Forum's January Future of Jobs report. Last year, the number of online job postings that included generative AI as a desired skill grew 323 percent, from fewer than 16,000 to more than 66,000, according to a report from the labor analytics company Lightcast. Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. Colleges are also motivated by these trends: They're adding AI to their course catalogs, and individual professors are altering lessons to include AI skill building. Miami Dade College, for example, debuted its artificial intelligence certificate program in 2023, just over a month after ChatGPT was unveiled. The program offers classes in machine learning, ethics and natural language programming, among other courses. Since rolling out the certificate program, the school has added associate and bachelor's degree programs in applied AI. "We started developing this idea around the application of AI - how you can apply AI, how can you learn AI at a community college - where it is open to everyone, not just to a few who can get a master's or Ph.D.," said Antonio Delgado, vice president of innovation and technology partnerships at Miami Dade College. In 2022, the college also created Miami Tech Works, an organization that helps tech companies find skilled workers. Recently, more businesses outside of tech have reached out to hire people who know how to use AI. "We didn't know there would be so many employers talking about AI and talking about implementing AI," said Terri-Ann Brown, director of Miami Tech Works. Brown said the owner of a high-end hotel in South Florida told her that a year ago, the hotel's executives were worried about AI taking their jobs. Now, each department at the hotel has been charged with researching AI tools and reporting ways they can use them. For example, one department created an online chatbot to recommend restaurants to hotel guests. Miami Dade College's programs have attracted students like Vicky Cheung, who decided to enroll in the college's artificial intelligence awareness certificate program in 2024, after she was let go from the Miami hospital where she had worked for more than two decades. Cheung, who already had a bachelor's in business and a master's in health management, was looking into courses that would give her skills she could add to her resume. She believes her AI courses, coupled with her years of work experience, helped her land her new job analyzing how to improve processes and workflow at a different in the program showed employers "that I'm trying to find a way to improve my skill sets," she said. Related: University students offload critical thinking, other hard work to AI Schools across the country have announced programs similar to the one at Miami Dade College: courses in artificial intelligence in business settings and minors in AI marketed to students who are not computer science majors. But higher education institutions are not inherently nimble - and the technology is evolving quickly. Because generative AI is changing so rapidly, there's no one curriculum or credential schools are using, or can look to, as a guidepost. What these lessons look like and the rules about how students should use AI vary by institution, or even classroom to classroom. "Institutions are really built to move slowly - there are committees, policies, there's accreditation. It's almost in their DNA to not move fast," said Josh Jones, CEO of QuantHub, a company that works with schools including the University of Alabama and Emory University to add artificial intelligence lessons. "The problem we have is that AI is changing industries so fast that the textbooks, the curriculum - by the time you get it approved, it's relevant, but it's outdated." There are ethical implications for using generative AI as well - from students using the technology to cheat on assignments to the demand that data centers are putting on the nation's water supply. Some studies indicate college students who use AI on assignments are less engaged with their lessons and use it to offload critical thinking. Higher education institutions across the country have issued nearly identical statements acknowledging the risks, but also the need, for students to learn how to use artificial intelligence to prepare for the working world. The challenge for colleges will be getting that balance right, producing graduates who know how to use artificial intelligence but are not wholly reliant on it. James Taylor, a philosophy professor at The College of New Jersey, changed his classroom setup about a year and a half ago to prevent students from using AI on his assignments. Now, when the class has to write an essay, they do it by hand while in the room. When students take a test, they do it with paper and pencil via blue books. Related: What aspects of teaching should remain human? Taylor doesn't have a problem with students using AI in other classrooms and believes students should learn how to use AI tools, to some degree. He doesn't want students using it to get around having to think critically, however, a skill they will need even if they use AI in their future jobs. "What we're trying to do is teach students how to think, how to identify arguments, analyze arguments, put together their own arguments," Taylor said. "When they just use AI to do this, they don't gain any of the critical thinking skills that they need." For Derrick Anderson, who teaches public affairs at Arizona State University and is senior vice president at the American Council on Education, it's simple: If AI is a tool students will use at jobs, they should learn how to use it in his classroom. "Because I'm preparing them for the job market, they need to know how to use generative AI ethically, but efficiently and effectively," Anderson said. Now, instead of having students write an essay at the end of one of his public affairs courses, Anderson has them produce a video with the help of ChatGPT. One student in Anderson's class created a video about new technology that mimics the human brain. In the video, the student narrates as an AI-generated image of a model brain spins on the screen. When he starts talking about the electrical output of supercomputers, the video cuts to wind turbines spinning atop AI-generated grassy hills. Previously, one of Anderson's class assignments required students to write a memo; now, they have to write four different kinds of memos using ChatGPT and describe scenarios where they would be appropriate. "It's a fundamentally different exercise that involves a much larger volume of content because content is so much easier to create," Anderson said. The students in his classes have used their AI videos and projects in their portfolios when looking for jobs to show they have experience with these programs, even if they lack a specific degree or credential. Related: AI might disrupt math and computer science classes - in a good way Employers are looking for those kinds of demonstrable examples of AI skills from graduates, said Ken Finneran, vice president of human resources at the digital health care company eMed, since there is no industry-recognized credential for the AI skills needed in a certain profession. Instead, hundreds of varying credentials are offered by companies, including Google and IBM. Every department at eMed, from marketing to human resources to finance, uses generative artificial intelligence tools in some way, said Finneran, and the company expects all prospective employees to have some foundational knowledge of AI. The company's departments are about 20 to 30 percent more productive after using AI tools to complete tasks, Finneran said. And he believes doctors who use AI are better at diagnosing patients than either the doctor or an artificial intelligence program alone. "Those who are hesitant or even blockers around AI will not be the leaders, even if they have a tradition of being an industry leader, within the next two years," Finneran said. "They will be overtaken by those who are effectively leveraging AI." Vivas, the creative media studio owner, said some of the freelancers he works with have approached him with concerns about generative artificial intelligence: photography models worried about being replaced by AI generated images and contract marketers concerned it will make them irrelevant if people start using ChatGPT to spit out their own marketing plans. Vivas said he doesn't plan to use AI to fully replace humans, and he doesn't believe other employers will either. But he does think workers who ignore the technology do so at their own peril. "It's not that AI is going to replace them," he said, "but the person that is using AI is going to replace them." Contact reporter Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@ This story about AI courses was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. The post To employers, AI skills aren't just for tech majors anymore appeared first on The Hechinger Report.


Hindustan Times
16-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Equipping young women for the future workforce
As India advances toward its Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, one of its most overlooked strengths lies in the millions of young women from underserved communities who remain excluded from the formal workforce. According to a report by Magic Bus India Foundation and Bain & Company (2024), India's Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) remains between 35% and 40%, significantly lower than the global average of 47%. To reach its developmental goal of becoming a $30 trillion economy, India needs to integrate nearly 145 million additional women, beyond the current growth in female labour force participation, into the workforce by 2047. Achieving this requires a gender-responsive skilling framework aligned with 21st century skilling, integrating technical training with life and employability skills, digital literacy, and leadership development, especially for individuals from underserved backgrounds. According to a recent Mercer-Mettl report (2023), only 42.6% of Indian graduates are employable. For young women from under-resourced communities, this statistic reflects even deeper barriers, such as limited access to quality education, early marriage, caregiving responsibilities, and mobility constraints. Beyond technical know-how, these women need 21st-century life and employability skills to empower them to succeed in the workplace. This includes communication, collaboration, adaptability, problem-solving, career management, workplace ethics, and financial literacy. They also need agency, confidence, and capacity to make informed choices, earn with dignity, and sustain livelihoods. Life skills are not just nice-to-have, they are the foundation for long-term success in the workforce. Magic Bus India Foundation and Bain & Company's report also indicates that nearly 45% of India's future economic growth will depend on greater female workforce participation. For this to happen, FLFPR must rise to approximately 70% by 2047. Equipping young women with life and employability skills is not just a developmental priority; it is the linchpin of this transformation. These skills unlock pathways to meaningful work, build resilience in the face of adversity, and create a generation of confident, capable women ready to power India's economic and social progress. In empowering them, we prepare a nation for inclusive and sustained growth. In an era where industries and job roles are evolving rapidly, technical skills alone are no longer sufficient. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report (2025) consistently emphasises life skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability to be essential for employability. In various community-based initiatives, a significant percentage of young women have reported increased confidence, enhanced decision-making capacity, and greater control over financial resources as key indicators of personal agency. These outcomes go beyond employment metrics; they represent pathways to social mobility and markers of generational change. India's future workforce strategy must move beyond short-term job placements to sustainable livelihoods marked by income growth, dignity, and upward mobility. Here is how: While the need for increased workforce participation is universal, the challenges faced by rural and urban women differ significantly. In rural India, women often grapple with foundational challenges such as a lack of transport, childcare, digital access, or safe workplaces. Many are engaged in informal work, without job security or income stability. Solutions here must go beyond skilling to include investments in infrastructure and supportive services like childcare and transportation. In urban areas, the aspiration-reality gap is striking. Despite higher educational attainment, urban women frequently face skill mismatches, wage gaps, and workplace bias. Career breaks due to caregiving only worsen the scenario. These challenges demand inclusive hiring practices, re-entry programmes, and flexible, industry-aligned training pathways. India's demographic dividend will pay off only if young women are equipped not just to survive, but to thrive. This means prioritising life and employability skills, aligning training with market needs, and supporting women through life transitions into dignified jobs and entrepreneurial ventures. Government initiatives such as National Rural Livelihood Mission, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Mahila Samriddhi Yojana, and the Women Entrepreneurship Platform are playing a vital role in advancing women's economic inclusion. When combined with supportive infrastructure such as safe commuting options and female-friendly workplaces, these policies and programme create an enabling environment for young women to participate in and thrive within the formal workforce. Every girl and young woman deserve a life of opportunity, dignity, and confidence. Unlocking their potential is not just a moral imperative, it is a sound economic strategy. As India continues to invest in initiatives like Skill India, Digital India, and Startup India, it must place underserved young women at the heart of the strategy because the future of work and the future of the nation depend on it. This article is authored by Arun Nalavadi, chief of programmes, Livelihood, Magic Bus India Foundation.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Opinion: Instead of Banning Cellphones in School, Our Connecticut District Embraced Them
To many teachers and administrators, the biggest enemy of education sits in the pockets and backpacks of their students. Viewed as a classroom distraction, cellphones have been banned in K-12 districts across the country, ensuring that social media and artificial intelligence apps are inaccessible during the school day. While the intentions behind the bans are understandable, are schools unknowingly holding back students in the long run? At Meriden Public Schools in Connecticut, we were frustrated by our students' growing dependency on their cellphones and the potential misuse of AI and other tech tools. But Meriden is also a district that pioneers innovation by embracing new technology and teaching methods. Related The reality is, technology isn't going away — it's only going to become more prominent in students' everyday lives. According to the 2025 Future of Jobs report, AI and technology are expected to transform 86% of businesses in the next five years, making digital literacy a must-have skill for tomorrow's workforce. As district administrators, we held the responsibility to foster responsible, productive digital citizens in our hands. We just had to find the right balance between traditional and tech-reliant learning. The district's acceptable-use policy provides a solid framework that encourages the responsible use of all technologies while allowing administrators the flexibility to pilot new tools. To help teachers and staff navigate the ever-changing AI landscape, our school leaders and instructional technology team created a library of documents and guidelines, including AI FAQs and an academic honesty and integrity checklist to use with students. In addition, ensuring the effective use of technology has meant expanding our digital citizenship curriculum. All Meriden students complete grade-appropriate lessons each year, which cover topics including online safety, cyberbullying and how to build a positive online profile. While younger pupils participate in offline simulations to learn about the responsible use of social media in the future, older students can take classes in digital photography, video production and other tech-related topics. Related Refining our technology guidelines required us to revisit our cellphone usage rules. With millions being spent on 'bell-to-bell' school phone bans, Meriden chose to take the opposite approach. School leaders realized that it's not the device that matters, but quick and easy access to high-quality digital content. Meriden students have always been able to access digital curriculum through their Chromebooks in the classroom, but they prefer the convenience and familiarity of their smartphones. So rather than sitting in a pouch all day, cellphones are now being used as learning tools. Meriden students use their phones to create photos, audio recordings and videos to demonstrate learning, monitor assignments and grades in PowerSchool, and regularly communicate with teachers, counselors and coaches through ParentSquare. They also rely on their phones to access critical AI learning tools, including Gemini, which generates personalized study guides and practice questions, and the AI Chat for Securly Filter that teaches ethical digital practices and allows them to conduct research in a controlled environment. To promote the effective use of AI, cellphones and social media, the district provides educators with training on integrating technology into learning and student data privacy. While teachers can request that phones be 'off-and-away' during class time, many have made them a part of their lessons. For instance, in math classes, students are encouraged to take photos of the examples and use them as guides when solving complex problems. In dual-enrollment public speaking classes, students record their speeches, which helps them work on timing, pacing and delivery. Similarly, in physical education classes, students use their phones to demonstrate proper form and receive feedback on personalized workouts. Embracing technology allows educators the flexibility to facilitate small-group instruction during class time. While one group of students learns alongside the teacher, their classmates work on digital content at their own pace and grade level with a virtual tutor such as ST Math and Freckle. Tools like MagicSchool AI have also helped educators automate daily tasks, such as generating rubrics and creating learning materials, while NoRedInk streamlines the grading process, alerts teachers when students are copying and pasting text rather than doing original writing and helps ensure that they receive targeted, personalized instruction. Now, teachers can spend more time interacting with students and less on administrative duties. Related As new tools and policies are implemented, the district has continued to keep parents in the loop with information sessions and regular communication. That open dialogue has prevented the pushback many districts have received. Most parents have been receptive to our 'off-and-away' cell phone policy, not just from a safety aspect, but an educational one as well. AI is already reshaping tomorrow's workplace, and for the sake of students' success, schools have to take the fear out of technology. Administrators should feel empowered to try different tools, show educators how AI can assist them in their daily operations and design curriculum that thoughtfully incorporates new technology. School leaders must do more than equip students with digital literacy skills — they need to teach them how to use digital tools appropriately and responsibly, to be good stewards of technology. There's power in those cellphones sitting in students' pockets and backpacks. It's up to educators to get them to use it the right way.