As a leader, you must ensure you provide – and continue to provide – AI education and literacy in your workplace. The real risk is not in the technology, but in the lack of education about using it. When you introduce AI into your workplace, you must also include professional development for your team to build the right mindset, skills, and practical knowledge about using it.

https://swiy.co/go-education-before-automation

As we’re nearing the end of 2025, I wonder whether you feel you and your team have the right skills to be ready for 2026 – and beyond?

The ABC website recently published an article about ACM – Australian Community Media – using AI to assist their journalists – in writing and editing stories, checking them for legal issues, and so on. The story led with this headline:

“Staff in regional ACM newsrooms concerned about rollout of generative AI model”

The article quoted a journalist who had used AI (Google Gemini) to help write an article (nothing wrong with that), reviewed it (good!), but was shocked to find it contained factual errors. The article goes on to quote her union representative, who stood up for her, saying:

“That journalist caught it, by doing the fact checking, but had they not, it obviously would have been a disaster. Not only for the journalist, but also for the person who had been wrongly accused.”

As I was reading that, I thought, “Well, d’uh! Journalists being asked to do fact-checking? Isn’t that what they are SUPPOSED to do???”

Whether they ask somebody on the street, interview a politician, or ask AI, fact-checking is a basic part of journalism. It should be just part of the automatic response to any information before publishing.

The problem here is not with the journo – who in fact did the right thing.

The problem is with her union rep, who was outraged by AI’s (lack of) “intelligence”.

And the problem is also with the ABC, who considered it newsworthy to report on somebody doing their job!

And obviously, the REAL problem is the lack of basic understanding about AI – from employees, managers, and our national broadcaster.

This is a problem not only in the media, but in organisations everywhere. People are being given access to AI without appropriate education and training on what it can do, what it can’t do, and how to use if effectively, safely, and responsibly.

Whether you call it AI literacy or digital literacy, this is a key skill for the future. Young people get it, but many others don’t.

There are many people in roles now who knew how to operate effectively in the past, but the world has moved on, and they might no longer be fit for the future. That’s why it is up to all of us – especially leaders and managers – to educate and provide appropriate professional development, so we develop the skills for the future.

For more about this, join my online presentation soon about future-ready skills.

Register for the virtual masterclass:

https://swiy.co/go-education-before-automation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.