• TalentGenius
  • Posts
  • Where’s the AI talent today...and tomorrow?

Where’s the AI talent today...and tomorrow?

The centers of gravity for AI talent might surprise you.

Author

Malcolm Frank, CEO
December 08, 2025

Where’s the AI talent today…and tomorrow?

Much is made of the rapid advancement of AI technology: NVIDIA’s chips, the model races among OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI, and the Cambrian explosion of agents reshaping workflows.  

But behind every breakthrough is a different kind of infrastructure: people. The real question for leaders is no longer what the next model can do, but who will build it, deploy it, and govern it.

A new BCG talent report offers a revealing snapshot of the global AI talent landscape, with two findings that matter for any organization competing in an AI-powered economy:

1. Which countries are attracting the strongest AI talent?
The US has strengthened its position as top dog, continuing to be the preferred spot for global AI talent. The surprise (and signal) is who’s next: the UAE. With aggressive investment in tech hubs and highly attractive expat incentives, it has leapfrogged the UK, Germany, and Canada to become a major magnet for AI experts.

2. Which universities are producing the next generation of AI leaders?
If you assume the pipeline is dominated by MIT, Stanford, Caltech, or Oxbridge, think again. Cambridge was the only Western school to make the list. The rest were all in Asia, with India capturing the top five spots and institutions such as the University of Tehran and Egypt’s Mansoura University cracking the global top ten. The center of gravity for AI talent is shifting…quickly.

For companies and countries alike, the path forward is clear. Winning in AI requires a talent trifecta: 1.) reskilling the existing workforce, 2.) building the workforce of the future, and 3.) importing critical skills where needed.

Life comes at you fast. AI comes even faster.

BCG’s talent report shows a rapidly shifting landscape

The US still leads the pack in AI talent, but the UAE jumped up to second spot overtaking the UK and Canada. And the top ten universities producing AI talent? Only one of them is in the West.

SAP CEO urges Europe to unite and ease AI rules to stay competitive

Christian Klein said Europe is "more important than ever" in a fast-changing geopolitical environment but "stands in its own way ... regulating where nothing has to be regulated."

Amazon's new AI can code for days without human help. What does that mean for software engineers?

Frontier agents are here: Smart helpers that remember everything, learn from your work, and automatically create complex software systems.

AI’s next challenge: Take the CEO’s job

Sundar Pichai of Alphabet: “What a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things…for an AI to do.”

Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas

Report: Microsoft declared “the era of AI agents” in May, but enterprise customers aren’t buying.

Accenture and OpenAI partner to accelerate enterprise AI success

The partnership will equip Accenture with the latest OpenAI implementation playbooks, industry use-cases, security and deployment insights, and hands-on expertise to help clients adopt AI in real business workflows. 

Gartner: Enterprise software spend will grow a stunning 15.2% next year

But most of that will go to price increases and AI apps.

OpenAI CEO declares “code red” as Gemini gains 200 million users in 3 months

Three years after Google sounded alarm bells over ChatGPT, the tables have turned.

Agentic Team of the Week:
LinkedIn Post Writing Assistant

The LinkedIn Writing Assistant turns your brand voice into a production engine. This system studies your writing, your tone, your cadence, and your positioning — then produces polished, high-performing posts every single week.

4 things Marc Andreessen says all founders should be doing with AI to beat the competition

Just like people who plunk out “Chopsticks” on a piano can’t play Chopin on the first try, casual AI users won’t have the ability to utilize the technology to its peak potential. 

AWS needs you to believe in AI agents

AWS announced a wave of new AI agent tools at re:Invent 2025, but can Amazon actually catch up to the AI leaders? 

Legal AI startup Harvey confirms $8B valuation

The recent $160 million round is up from June’s $5 billion valuation.

Agents-as-a-service are poised to rewire the software industry and corporate structures

“With agents, it’s almost like you’re hiring employees. You have to determine whom to hire, how to train them, make sure all the business units are getting value out of them, and figure when to fire them.”

“We're creatives - this is what AI has done to our jobs”

According to researchers, more than two-thirds of workers in the creative industries believe AI is a threat to their job security. Half of novelists worry that AI could replace them.

AI isn’t killing travel agents. It’s making them better

As AI surges in travel planning—with a 2,000% spike in generative search traffic and 86% of global travelers eager to use it—human agents are adapting to emerge faster, smarter, and more indispensable.

And one more thing…

AI “griefbots” resurrect dead loved ones — healthy or harmful?

Justin Harrison’s mother passed away in 2022, but he still speaks with her every week. While his mother was still alive, Harrison recreated her virtually using AI.

Reply

or to participate.