Time to Act: Preparing Youth for Work in an AI-Powered World

Highlights

The world is undergoing a radical transformation that will impact the futures of over a billion young people. Generative AI (GenAI) is fundamentally reshaping the world of work in ways that we are only just beginning to understand, creating once-in-a-generation economic opportunities while at the same time threatening to increase global inequality if action is not taken on a global scale. As we stand on the precipice of this new era, it is our collective responsibility – public sector, private sector, and civil society with young people – to ensure that every young person is able to utilise the potential of GenAI and that its democratising promise is fully realised to the benefit of every nation and every young person.

This report analyses the emerging threats and opportunities facing youth as they transition from learning to earning in the GenAI era. It is informed by surveys and focused discussions with more than 30 member organisations from Generation Unlimited’s Global Leadership Council (GLC), including governments, private sector businesses, youth organisations, non-governmental organisations, and international development agencies. It also spotlights the voice of youth from a global survey conducted for this report of 53,878 young people from 184 countries.

We call on all actors in the learning-to-earning ecosystem to:

• Take immediate steps to mitigate the digital divide.
• Develop foundational GenAI skilling content and certifications and make them available to the world’s young people for free.
• Deploy GenAI skilling programmes at scale to ensure every young person has the GenAI skills to thrive in tomorrow’s workforce.
• Invest in developing young people’s “uniquely human skills” that GenAI will not replace.

Listen to an AI-generated Podcast on the report here.