I'm the chief product officer of a workforce software provider — here's how my company uses AI to help develop talent

• Karthik Suri, Cornerstone OnDemand's chief product officer, said AI can help fix a workforce readiness gap.
• Suri said Cornerstone uses the tech to inform employers of talent-development opportunities.
• This article is part of "Build IT," a series about digital-tech trends disrupting industries.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Karthik Suri, the chief product officer of Cornerstone OnDemand, which provides software for workforce management and development. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Through my decadeslong career in tech, one thing that has become clear is that when emerging technology is used responsibly to harness human potential, the world is a better place. Two years ago, I was drawn to join Cornerstone OnDemand because of its mission to help organizations thrive in a changing world.

The World Economic Forum estimates that 44% of employees' skills will be disrupted in the next five years thanks to everything from societal changes to emerging technology.

This is leading to a workforce readiness gap, and we're using AI to help fix it. This year, we launched Cornerstone Galaxy, an AI-powered talent-development platform that's helping transform strategic workforce planning.

Helping employers fill skill gaps

When it comes to workforce planning, employers need to answer two questions: What skills do I need to deliver my business outcomes now and in the future? And what skills do I already have in my organization?

By integrating AI into our software, we're able to better answer these questions by processing terabytes of data every day, from billions of job descriptions for open positions to employee performance data.

From a macro perspective, this can help employers identify skills that may be in surplus or skills shortages in different geographies or functions. This helps them plan their hiring approach and internal talent-development strategy.

From a micro perspective, it can assist with short-term rebalancing. Say I have a labor shortage in a specific plant and need a person certified in operating certain machinery who speaks a certain language. It can be difficult to find this person manually: Data about an employee gets spread into a litany of systems on the day they join a company. Our system uses AI to synthesize that information and indicate the employee resources you can tap into to solve your labor shortages.

Helping employees plan career paths

This richness of data can also help us provide the right learning and growth opportunities to employees and keep them engaged.

Imagine AI as a mentor that understands the context of where you are in your career and the growth paths available in an organization. That data, powered by the right generative and descriptive AI, can help employees take the right learning recommendations at the right time in their journey.

Our platform can help answer questions like what career-path opportunities are there for me in the organization? What are the next-level internal job opportunities I could consider? For a chosen career path, what are the performance targets or skills I need to be working toward? Who are the mentors I could work with?

Employees can also query for a specific skill they want to build and be directed to the precise courses, videos, podcasts, and even virtual-reality and extended-reality opportunities to learn and practice that skill.

Maximizing employees' potential

With the right talent-development systems in place, AI will allow employers to better use their existing talent. By automating the mundane, talent can be upskilled and reinvested to solve bigger problems for your organization.

So instead of thinking about AI as job loss, think about it as changing the shape of our workforce and its possibilities.