"The field related to artificial intelligence is full of opportunities today, and entrepreneurs are eagerly waiting for new talent. The capability for implementing AI solutions is relatively modest at present – we are still at the beginning of something big. Many companies have the potential to optimize and develop their services, but their ability is still weak," said Urve Mets. According to her, IT skills alone are insufficient in the job market – an interdisciplinary knowledge base encompassing general skills must be broader, and one needs to understand industry-specific business logic.

At the panel discussion "AI Revolution in the Job Market: How to Be Prepared" at the INIT event introducing TalTech's Informatics and Artificial Intelligence curriculum, Luukas Ilves, Advisor to the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transition Issues, Urve Mets, Senior Research Manager of the OSKA Future Skills Report, Professor Sven Nõmm, Head of TalTech's AI Focus Center of Excellence, and Mervi Sepp Rei, QA Machine Learning Manager at Zendesk, shared their thoughts on the impact of artificial intelligence on various aspects of life. The discussion, which took place at Mektory on March 1, was moderated by Estonian Public Broadcasting journalist Kristjan Pihl.

"Entrepreneurs expect university graduates to be able to use modern technologies, but also to understand why machines provide certain answers and to be able to interpret them," said Sven Nõmm. "When discussing professions that may be at risk due to AI development, routine data entry and processing jobs can be highlighted, but they are probably not disappearing anywhere – their work nature is changing."

Luukas Ilves confirmed this: "The need for mediocre code writing is disappearing because artificial intelligence does it, but the need for fundamental knowledge in deep engineering is growing – AI can write classic code better, but we need people to manage these processes."

Mervi Sepp Rei pointed out a real-life dissonance: "We talk about solving complex problems with artificial intelligence, but in reality, terribly stupid tasks are still done manually. We want bots to solve everything, but we still check grammar manually. AI's capability is to find patterns in large volumes of data and text and analyze, classify, and categorize them very quickly."

The medical field was also mentioned as an example, where artificial intelligence certainly cannot replace doctors but gives people hundreds of times more access to medical data from a health information perspective than we've had before. "The capability of artificial intelligence in different process stages is much greater than, for example, viewing and comparing X-rays. The amount of data that a general practitioner has to enter could already be much better automated," Ilves thought. "For fitness and nutrition goals, artificial intelligence can successfully provide advice because it has a comprehensive literature background. For just a few euros, AI is capable of providing advice comparable in quality to a personal trainer, whose service price and time cost are many times higher."

The experts acknowledged that developing artificial intelligence presents a great opportunity for the next "tiger leap," but it requires significant cooperation and enthusiasm from teachers and students. "Task formulations need to change, and it's necessary to understand the purpose of learning in depth because artificial intelligence does a lot for students," said Ilves. "We need to build a smart nation as a whole, but we also need top specialists who can see how to benefit from artificial intelligence. The university's role is to nurture both sides, not to stop halfway but to move to the next level through master's and doctoral studies," said Mets.

To help adapt to changes in the job market and prepare specialists with the necessary knowledge and skills, TalTech has renewed its Informatics and Artificial Intelligence curriculum. In addition to basic professional knowledge, greater attention is paid to a deeper understanding of AI systems and their development and management. This aligns with OSKA job market forecasts, according to which the number of people employed in ICT core occupations will increase at least 1.5 times by 2027, and Estonia needs over 2,600 new ICT specialists every year.