Axios Live: Ohio leaders discuss workforce development in the AI age

CINCINNATI – Lawmakers, educators and companies are gearing up for shifts in jobs and skill sets brought on by technological advancements like artificial intelligence, speakers said at an Axios event.

Why it matters: Rapid transformations in technology are transforming sectors like manufacturing, driving the need for workers who possess the skills for increasingly technical jobs.

Axios' Erica Pandey and Mike Allen spoke with Ohio state Rep. Adam Mathews; Monica Posey, president at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College; Ohio Department of Higher Education chancellor Mike Duffey; Brendon Cull, president and CEO of the Cincinnati Regional Chamber; and Alain Bellemare, Delta Air Lines EVP and president-international, at the event. It was sponsored by GE Aerospace.

What they're saying: In the AI era, "what our manufacturing facilities and our normal types of businesses are going to have to navigate is how do we actually use the seed corn to build that next generation, rather than eating it now for short-term gain," Mathews said.

• "You have people coming in as entry level, and still need to learn how to weld, how to be an associate attorney, how to write sales copy … and if those things get outsourced to AI, we're not going to have the next generation of leadership."
• "I do think there's going to be a lot of increase in manufacturing and increase in speed and efficiencies, because you can have AI help with routine maintenance. … But you're still going to need humans that know whether the AI is even spitting out something that makes sense, or if it's just slop."

State of play: Today, higher education students represent a wide age range, as educational and workforce development institutions increasingly offer upskilling and reskilling programs to broaden the workforce.

• "Our average student age is about 25, so we have just as many from high school as mature adults coming back to college," Posey said.
• "If you think about it, higher education has switched from an all-or-nothing, really get a degree, to now pieces that stack together for a complete education, and you're never really done – it is going to become lifelong learning," Duffey said.

Zoom out: Cincinnati, which has long been a hub for manufacturing, is focused on cultivating a strong sense of place in its bid to attract talent.

• "If as a community you're not investing in housing, and transportation, and arts and culture, and vibrancy, and the kind of pieces of the puzzle that make a city attractive, you're not going to win all of the rest of the workforce conversation either," Cull said.

The bottom line: Preparing and supporting strong talent is at the heart of success for many companies, and investing in the workforce is a key business strategy.

• "Delta is doing extremely well – it's doing well because it's powered by great people," Bellemare said.
• "It's all about talent, it's about people, it's about making sure that you have the right skill set in place to deliver to the customer expectations."

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, GE Aerospace chairman and CEO Larry Culp shared that the GE Aerospace Foundation will launch a $30-million, multiyear skills training program to grow the advanced manufacturing workforce.

• "We're really doing this as part of an industry-wide effort to make sure that aerospace not only has the capacity but the capabilities to fulfill the missions that we see in front of us," Culp said.