Pluralsight is a workforce technology skills development company that helps organizations assess, develop, and benchmark technical skills across areas such as AI, software development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and IT operations.
You work with a large number of Fortune 500 companies. To what extent is the AI implementation gap driven by skills and the human element rather than the technology itself?
There are really two factors creating the gap between AI ambition and AI outcomes. First, many organizations are not technologically ready. They assume AI can solve their challenges, but they have not assessed whether their technology stack or data infrastructure is prepared. Companies that have grown through acquisitions often have highly complex systems, and layering AI on top of existing issues only amplifies those problems.
The second and biggest factor is skills. Organizations need a workforce that understands AI and is prepared to use it effectively. Initially, the focus was primarily on engineering teams, but today every employee needs a baseline understanding of AI.
The challenge is no longer just upskilling technologists. Organizations must now educate non-technical employees as well, which is something many businesses have little experience doing.
How could Pluralsight help organizations train and upskill their workforce to meet the exigencies of the AI era?
We take a three-tiered approach through what we call AI Academy. The first level focuses on awareness, helping employees understand AI terminology and the basics of prompt engineering. The second level focuses on proficiency, teaching people how to effectively use the AI tools their organization has chosen, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude, or another platform.
The third level is designed for a smaller group of employees who will build and manage AI solutions. These individuals learn how to create agents, manage deployment cycles, and oversee their operation within the organization. Every program begins with a skills assessment, allowing us to benchmark current capabilities, identify skills gaps, and create customized learning paths based on roles, departments, and business objectives.
AI is evolving rapidly. How do you ensure your training remains relevant as the required skills change?
We constantly evolve our content and courses. One area we're actively investing in is critical thinking because the future of AI will depend heavily on human oversight and the ability to use these tools responsibly. We are also seeing demand for unexpected areas of knowledge, such as understanding token usage and how AI consumption affects business costs.
Our job is to stay close to these developments and identify emerging skills that will have business implications. We create thousands of pieces of content and continuously update our offerings. Given the pace of AI innovation, this will remain a major area of focus for us as we work with experts to ensure organizations stay prepared.
Do executives now recognize that workforce upskilling is a critical part of achieving AI ROI?
The answer is both yes and no. Organizations understand AI is important, but many are still trying to determine what it means for their business and how adoption should happen. New capabilities and integration models continue to emerge, bringing governance, security, and operational challenges that many companies are still trying to understand.
Upskilling engineering teams has generally been successful because technology organizations are accustomed to continuous learning. The challenge becomes much greater when an entire company needs training. At that point, investment decisions extend beyond the CTO and learning teams to the broader C-suite, where leaders must decide whether learning initiatives are worth the time and budget required.
You recently launched Pluralsight Secure Ready. What problem is the product designed to solve?
Secure Ready is designed primarily for technology organizations and the CISO office. Its goal is to help security teams understand what they need to do to be prepared in an increasingly complex cybersecurity environment.
More broadly, we see an opportunity to bring elements of that security education to the wider workforce. As AI tools become more common, organizations need clear policies around issues such as data usage and privacy. Without proper training and governance, simply providing employees with AI tools can create significant security risks. We see an opportunity to bridge the gap between deep security expertise and baseline AI security awareness for all employees.
Looking ahead one year, where would you like Pluralsight and its customers to be?
I would like to see customers feeling much more confident about their AI strategies and the solutions they have deployed. We work with organizations at very different stages of maturity. Some are far along in their AI journeys, while many are still in the early stages, trying to understand what AI means for their business and how to move forward.
There is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty despite all the headlines and hype. In reality, very few companies have fully adopted autonomous solutions or automated end-to-end processes with AI. My hope is that our customers become more confident in their roadmaps, feel less concerned about being left behind, and are able to deliver measurable value from these technologies.
