It Depends

As your organization pivots toward integrating generative AI (GenAI) into more of its business processes, you may be wondering if it’s time to engage GenAI talent to join your staff. The answer depends on several factors.

For example, can you access this expertise through other teams? Are your needs modest, or are you building core applications for the medium or long term? And even if your team may not need this expertise currently for any of its own initiatives or projects, colleagues and clients may assume that your staff is ready to provide this expertise for such projects as international SEO for content creators in other groups, or for building and testing focused large language models (FLLMs) for company-wide use.

Create a Decision Tree

Developing a decision tree will allow you to document team-specific criteria to help you decide if it’s time to hire full-time GenAI staff. Your internal review will lead you to one of the following options:

• Yes, let’s hire. Collaborate with HR – and possibly IT or engineering – colleagues to develop the optimum job profile(s) and title(s) to ensure that you identify and attract the right people at acceptable salary ranges. Consider hiring in tandem with other teams such as content operations and customer support, which may also require a certain level of GenAI expertise. Interviewers should know the right questions to ask for these types of positions. That means focusing on demonstrable experience rather than formal credentials and skills testing during hiring. And perhaps more importantly, it means HR systems not automatically rejecting potential fits before they even reach the interview stage.
• Let’s train an employee to take on this function, rather than hiring. If you have the time and resources, avoid competing for outside talent by upskilling a GenAI expert from within your organization. This employee will know and understand your requirements and have the personal connections needed to ensure success. Plan for them to learn the tools and technologies within four to six months. Allocate funds for training courses or working with outside consultants to build their skill set.
• No, let’s not hire – at least for now. You may not need to engage full-time GenAI expertise at this point if you can: 1) source it from other teams around the company or from trusted partners such as LSPs; 2) train a current employee to cover modest requirements (see the above section); 3) engage consultants when and as you need them (prompt engineers anyone?); 4) source the needed functionality through GenAI-based product offerings; and/or 5) afford to wait for langtech providers to integrate the required AI capabilities. You may also decide to delay hiring due to the lack of substantive requirements, budget, or executive and HR buy-in. 

Trying to make the decision as to whether it’s time to source some form of GenAI expertise shouldn’t keep you from setting up a series of lunch-and-learns. Invite internal and external sources who have the expertise to educate your teams and keep them up-to-date. Start by reaching out to language partners. Purchasing a few hours of consulting time to help your team explore GenAI-driven options won’t put much of a dent in your budget. Don’t forget that students and professors at local universities and colleagues at other companies may be glad to share what they know. Internships are another efficient way to capture new ideas based on the latest developments in the field while helping future experts to glimpse the reality of working in your area of business.