As AI reshapes work, a new program is showing what it takes to keep up - Federal News Network

Terry Gerton Mika I wanna start with you. You and I both spent some time in the Labor Department. The Labor Department has been pushing this idea of AI fluency as a core workforce skill. To me, that means that there’s a presumption that most people aren’t AI fluent. So how is the Labor department trying to address that problem?

Mika Cross Yeah, well, proud DOL alumni myself and former federal leader, of course, so this brings my heart joy to see the framework in terms of really giving a baseline across the country, whether it be in K-12 education, whether it’d be in workforce development, whether it would be for employers or those that are invested in skills development, really thinking about the five fundamentals of ensuring that the workforce has the right set of skills at all levels to be able to navigate the future of work in a successful way. So that includes a baseline for AI fundamentals and understanding what those are and how to leverage the tools, how to compare outputs, how to ensure you’re ethically and responsibly leveraging AI, and to make sure that you’re integrating the human skills of AI adoption in terms of critical judgment and decision making. And for demographics of workers that may have traditionally experienced barriers to employment, which there are many of, it is a way to try to create that baseline so that organizations can get the workforce of the future ready for navigating the complexities in today’s job market and tomorrow’s. So for me, that looks like individuals in rural communities, individuals maybe with disabilities or medical conditions. Of course transitioning military, veterans, caregivers, parents, and D, all of the above, our future talent in the workforce as well.

Terry Gerton Now, Ted, you’re focused on taking this AI framework and helping veterans use it. Tell me about this first cohort that you have for your mission ready AI readiness cohort.

Ted Adair Yeah. So we assembled a cohort of 13 veterans from across all eras, Vietnam to present, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard. And we also made sure that we had representation across both men, women, and the intent really is to fill a gap. We saw a need in the marketplace for veterans who wanted to go down several different career paths, whether it is to be an entrepreneur or to upskill on AI. And so we’ve built a cohort that is for veterans, by veterans, that gives veterans not only the awareness and understanding of how AI tools work, but practical outputs. They actually built live demonstrations of agents that they came and delivered to us on the final day.

Terry Gerton So are these folks that started your cohort with a lot of AI experience or with no AI experience?

Ted Adair We ran some surveys at the beginning, and the large proportion had experimented with AI, but were not confident in the tool sets. And when we did the post-exit survey, we got to the point where veterans were very comfortable with what they had built and what they delivered.

Terry Gerton So what does the curriculum of the cohort look like then? How do you take people from familiarity to facility?

Ted Adair So three weeks of 30 minutes a day online, modules delivered with a partner of ours, Lead with AI. And we also provided cohorts the faculty and training that met with them for office hours. We also had several ask me anything sessions and really worked side by side. So, the three weeks training, 30 minutes a day designed for folks that are busy, right? Busy lives, busy households. You get that 30 minutes a day plus during the week. And then, we brought everybody together for the demo on the very last day, where veterans came and for those last two weeks really had time to build out several different solutions. We had some great examples of some creative ways to use AI and take the friction out of their daily lives.

Terry Gerton Tell us about one of them.

Ted Adair So we had one cohort member who was having a real challenge managing life calendars. And he was able to integrate the sports calendar with the family calendar and the work and business calendar and de-conflict all the places he needed to be and at one time in a single pane of glass, right? Pick up your phone and you can see exactly where you need to be at what time, but across all of those different competing events in a busy household.

Terry Gerton Sounds like that’s something everybody can use.

Ted Adair Absolutely.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Mika Cross. She’s the founder of Strategy@Work, and Ted Adair is founder and president of the Oath and Oak. Mika, let me come back to you. We’ve talked about digital skills, but AI feels different. It’s really fast-moving, it’s more disruptive. What does AI fluency really change in terms of an individual’s employability?

Mika Cross Well, I think first you start with the basics of being comfortable with the skills and one of the things that is highlighted in the Mission Ready cohort is being tool agnostic. So throughout the curriculum really being able to compare outputs with the tool of choice. So if you are a Co-pilot user or fan and you leverage the stack in a Microsoft Tools versus Claude, you might be able to compare outputs and check for hallucinations, maybe do some deep research and compare and contrast what that might look like for your functionality. I think the other thing is meeting people where they’re at. So the very best organizations that deliver really premier training around AI understand that the majority of people are not technical experts here. So how can you get it into the hands of your everyday user for the purposes that they need to use them for? So for instance, with Mission Ready, what I really loved about the program is that we offered three specific pathways, whether that’s career transitions and job searching, business growth, scaling, and entrepreneurship, or general skills building and development. And with the help of the on-demand curriculum that Ted mentioned, as well as an assembly of volunteer AI coaches and experts from the military connected community, we were able to give people practical expertise around the use cases that work for them. So you didn’t have to be a technical expert in these AI tools. You just had to have an open mindset in terms of being curious, adaptable and learn the right skills for the purpose of what you’re building for.

Terry Gerton Ted, tell me a little bit more about how you saw this play out for veterans who were in the career transition track.

Ted Adair For veterans focused on career transition, we had a lot of questions about roles and jobs dedicated to forward deployed engineers — what does that term mean? What are those roles and functions? And we were able to break that down and talk about the practical consulting skills that they would need and then put the right tool sets in their hand. But more importantly, it’s the coaching and then the peer aspect of this. Military veterans, by and large, the first obstacle course or confidence course you ever went through with somebody else, you went through as a team. As you went over that wall, you were looking for either to help somebody over that wall or there was somebody on the other side. And I think that that’s what the peer-based aspects of this is. So as veterans are going through that military transition and tackling, hey, how do I get myself prepared to use AI as tool sets? It’s doing it in a peer-base environment. I think there’s no replication for that. And then doing it live as well. We did quite a bit up front, intentionally to bring folks in a room together, especially in an era where AI and social media kind of prevents that human factor. We were big on bringing folks together in the room.

Terry Gerton Mika, this is a really promising pilot, but it is just a pilot. From what you know about the workforce system, how do you imagine taking something like this cohort and scaling it? Thinking about transition programs in the military, workforce centers for training, where do you think it goes and how does it get bigger?

Mika Cross I think it’s an exciting time for growth and scaling and seeing what is possible. In fact, this new national initiative called AI Ready just got announced from the National Science Foundation, USDA, Department of Labor and Department of Commerce smack dab in the middle of us, almost finalizing our cohort. So we were thinking about all the ways that we could connect with workforce systems, non-profits, academia. Grant-funded partners, either military servicing or veteran servicing organizations and employers alike. But what we know about the Employment Space Terry is that it can’t be done in a vacuum. It’s no one solution is going to be a one-size-fits-all approach. So we are really looking for the right kinds of partners, communities, and organizations who might see this cohort as a differentiator specifically aligned to the Department of Labor’s AI framework. And the reason that is, is as Ted was mentioning, it’s also community building. So it’s how do you bring people together? How do you create a culture of psychological safety? You’re equipping them with the fundamentals. You’re ensuring that they have that framework of literacy and fluency, but then you’re making sure that they’re not doing it alone. A lot of these programs are offering training in an individual learner-based environment. This was done in a blended approach with a community of people with lived and shared experiences. So it was built for veterans and the military connected community by veterans and the military connected community. And we know that it’s gonna evolve and grow. Our volunteer faculty was comprised of AI experts from the U.S. Army, like Colonel Kris Saling, who is embarking on her own transition and retirement. We had former AI officer from the Office of Personnel Management, Taka Ariga. We had human-centered design experts from government, from the military, military spouse entrepreneurs who lended their time as AI coaches, career experts, and business growth partners to be a part of this. And there is a connection to the Patriot Boot Camp program as well, which, by the way, I heard about through this program as a proud veteran-owned small business myself. I went through the Patriot Boot Camp Program, connected with other veteran-owned small businesses. And in our first founding faculty, we had one of the Patriot Boot Camp alumni and a member who is a veteran owned small business herself completed the program and built an agent and assistant and demonstrated it in front of the entire Mission Ready program and now she has an agent with an app that’s going to help enable her business.

Terry Gerton I love hearing about all of those connections. And Ted, let me come back to you. You’ve got one cohort under your belt. What happens next? Are you imagining more cohorts, more larger cohorts? And what sort of policy support or legislative support do you need to scale this idea?

Ted Adair We envision multiple cohorts. In fact, we’ve had many folks that have come through our program and want to be mentors and coaches. And in a great military tradition of train the trainer, we would love to see that a part of our model as it matures and grows. In terms of policy and support, I think that educational benefits for this kind of training I think are going to be instrumental. And there’s no question that there’s a lot of free online training from premier institutions that do this exceptionally well, but it’s an individual based and it’s a self-driven based type of training. What we’ve built is something, again, for veterans by veterans, and if you think about those days where, you know, you went and did PT, there were a few days where you did PT by yourself. And there is something to do to doing hard things in a group, especially for veterans who, candidly, several were, I think, apprehensive about some of the tool sets that we put in front of them. And we saw some great growth over the span of the three weeks and into the to the final demo day.