Partners critical to bridge Australia’s digital skills gap in the age of AI

As the nation eyes growth through productivity, partners can help get the most out of digital technologies.

Productivity is on the national agenda, with digital technologies set to help lift output and fuel economic growth across the country.

However, a new Digital Pulse report from the ACS highlighted that businesses face AI and cybersecurity skills shortages and ongoing disruption from AI that could hamper efforts to advance our digital capabilities.

While partners face the same talent shortages and digital disruption, they told CRN Australia that they will be pivotal in helping to build capacity and support organisations in digital adoption.

“This is a time of incredible change and transformation for every organisation, and it’s also very exciting. There’s a huge amount of opportunity,” said Jane Livesey, APJ president, Cognizant.

Workforce digital skills deficiency

Widespread digital skills gaps are holding Australian businesses back, creating difficulties adopting new technologies, forgoing revenue and increasing cybersecurity risks, according to the ACS report.

Cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, data analytics and software engineering skills are in demand as businesses gear up to make the most of technology.

Partners must position themselves as both solution providers and skills accelerators in a market struggling with digital capabilities.

“We're in this big wave of AI for productivity and organisations are really focused on how they do things more productively,” said Livesey at Cognizant.

Yet industry experts such as Livesey believe that as well as foundational technical skills, there will be a greater emphasis on ‘soft’ skills.

“It’s the combination of AI and technology skills, critical thinking and business skills that are going to become really important,” she said.

The role of partners will be to help customers plug skills gaps and provide more managed solutions, while also actings as advisors on strategic planning and roadmaps to address the business value.

However, they too face a talent squeeze and without home-grown options will need to look overseas to meet their requirements.

“Spending two days at a conference, every single one of us had the same problem, and that was staff, and if you can’t find someone locally, you have to have a look at other avenues,” said Jim McKay, CEO of IT Networks.

AI adoption is growing, including agentic AI

The uptake of AI is creating structural change across the workforce, automating complex tasks, disrupting existing workflows and is set to touch almost every aspect of an organisation.

AI growth, especially agentic AI, opens the door for partners to become trusted AI integrators, advisors and trainers, but they must also upskill and embrace change.

“It requires a combination of curiosity and bravery. It's a time to learn and understand how to apply AI … and even disrupt ourselves to deliver services in a different way augmented with AI,” Livesey told CRN Australia.

Partners are already finding that their customers are looking for more guidance, support and help with AI training, governance and integration into their businesses.

“Clients are looking at what partnerships are going to help them deliver optimal experiences of products and services in a way that's unique and different than they are today.”

Agentic AI will accelerate these changes, but with continuous learning and adopting internal structures, the possibilities are almost limitless. Livesey is finding it’s a hot topic with customers and is excited about the applications within many different business processes.

“The agent is like a small AI with a job description that enables us to create guardrails around that particular AI component and … use a combination of agents and humans to execute [tasks],” she said.

Predicted shortage of cyber skills

The growth of the digital economy has seen cyber attacks become more pervasive, but many businesses have struggled to keep pace with the growth in cyber threats.

Partners are already finding themselves in the hot seat, with customers turning to them for stronger cybersecurity protections, workforce training and incident response and mediation.

They can expect continued growth in managed cyber services, greater emphasis on resilience, upskilling and customer education.

However, partners must strengthen their own cyber posture to meet industry requirements and face cyber skills shortages for their own workforce.

“If you don't have the right criteria and don't meet a known cybersecurity framework, you're not going to get a look in at the supply chain level,” said McKay.

However, McKay is finding that customers increasingly require found-the-clock coverage but may not appreciate the cost impost of full managed services.

“If we're not billing for a 24/7 service, you [can’t] expect one at no additional cost,” he said.

Furthermore, while AI increases exposure to cyber risks it also offers new tools to detect and respond to cyber threats, the report noted.

“Cyber skills are going to need to be embedded within business processes … and augmented with AI to actually help some of that monitoring and early identification,” he ended.