11 in 100 workers won't get the reskilling they need. Will you?
Your Essential Report from the Frontlines of Applied AI
Some employers have started hiring less because of AI.
The US Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, published on 14 October, gathers reports from business contacts across its 12 districts. In five of them, some firms said AI had made them more productive. Those firms had cut staff through attrition, delayed hiring or expected to create fewer jobs. Overall employment barely moved, so this is early.
The skills those jobs need are changing too. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 draws on more than 1,000 employers. It expects nearly 40% of the skills required on the job to change by 2030.
It also found that out of every 100 workers, 59 will need reskilling or upskilling by 2030. Of those, 11 are unlikely to get it.
So who makes sure you’re not one of the 11?
You do. Waiting for your employer’s training programme is the risky choice.
It’s clear to us that:
- Every skill you learn on a particular tool will expire.
- The ability to rebuild a skill doesn’t.
- Build two or three at a time, each tied to real work.
You’ve done this before. Every time your tools changed, you rebuilt a skill.
So this week is about rebuilding your skills on purpose. There’s a prompt below from AI+ Future Skills that builds a 90-day plan for your two skills. And there’s a case study on Standard Chartered, which found that reskilling its own people saved about USD 49,000 a person against hiring.
Plus the week’s news in applied AI — early-career US doctors asked most of the questions put to an AI medical search tool, Manulife gives its Canadian advisors an AI underwriting assistant, Brazil’s 99 uses AI to flag possible motorbike crashes, and three in five US school teachers used AI last school year.
Pick two or three skills to build, and tie each one to real work in the next 90 days.
Be honest about where you stand. A skill you can’t recall using recently is a gap.
Pick two or three that matter in the next 90 days, for a new role, a project or a change in your job.
Attach each one to work already on your calendar, and practise it every time that work comes round.
At day 90, check honestly. If a skill hasn’t moved, keep the goal and change the approach.
After 90 days, you have real work to show for each skill.
- Healthcare
US clinicians put 271 million questions to an AI medical search tool, and early-career doctors asked most of them
A JAMA study of OpenEvidence covered January 2024 to June 2026. Doctors within 10 years of graduating were 24.3% of physicians but asked 61.8% of their questions. Questions about treatment outnumbered questions about diagnosis, 33.1% to 13.9%. Three of the authors work for OpenEvidence, which supplied the data, and the study did not check whether the answers changed patient care.
JAMA study of 15 October 2026, as reported by Afya
- Insurance
Manulife gives Canadian advisors an AI assistant that answers underwriting questions from its own handbooks
Advisors ask in plain language before a client applies, and the answers come from Manulife’s underwriting advisor handbooks. The first version covers life insurance, critical illness insurance and Manulife’s Synergy products. It makes no underwriting decisions, and Manulife warns that its answers may contain errors.
Insurance Business, 14 October 2026
- Transport
Brazil’s 99 uses AI to spot possible motorbike crashes and send them straight to its safety team
The ride-hailing app’s new system reads trip data for signs that something has gone wrong. Suspect cases go to a specialist team, who check the situation and start the response. 99 has not said how many cases the system handles or how fast the team is alerted.
Mundo Conectado, 14 October 2026
- Education
Three in five US school teachers used AI to prepare lessons, grade and give feedback last school year
A Walton Family Foundation–Gallup survey of 1,952 educators found that 59% used AI tools in 2025–26. Nearly two-thirds of those users said it freed up time for the parts of the job that matter most to them. Use was lowest among educators aged 60 and over.
Gallup, 14 October 2026
Leave out your employer’s name and anything confidential. Name two skills you rated as needing attention, and a real situation coming up: an interview, a project or a new role. The prompt builds the 90 days in phases. You attach each skill to real work first, practise it as that work comes round, then check honestly at the end.
I've rated myself as needing attention on [skill] and [skill], and I have [describe an upcoming real situation — an interview, project, or role]. Help me build a specific 90-day plan structured in phases: what to attach to a real situation in the first couple of weeks, how to practise it through repetition over the following weeks, and a genuine way to check in at the end on whether it worked.
From Chapter 10 of AI+ Future Skills, word for word.
Reskill the people you have before you hire for the skill.
About five years ago, Standard Chartered launched a workforce plan built around one question. It asked: “What if skills — not job titles — became the currency of work?”
The bank worked out that reskilling an employee and moving them into a new role saved roughly USD 49,000, compared with hiring someone with the same skills. Its chief strategy and talent officer, Tanuj Kapilashrami, gave the figure to McKinsey.
Internal hiring rose from about 30% in 2023 to over 50% by mid-2025, the bank told Fortune. That saved more than USD 55 million in hiring costs and fees. The figures are the bank’s own.
Your next role may well come from inside your organisation. The skills you choose to build now are what make you the cheaper hire.
