As generative artificial intelligence has become more mainstream in the past year, businesses have taken notice. A report from Microsoft and LinkedIn found that more than half of Pittsburgh-area business leaders "say they would not hire someone without AI skills" and that nearly two-thirds said that they would "rather hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced candidate without them."
But while two-thirds of Pittsburgh-based leaders "believe their company needs to adopt AI to stay competitive" over half of respondents "worry their organization's leadership lacks a plan and vision to implement it."
Currently, 61% of knowledge workers based in Pittsburgh use some form of generative AI at work. 51% of them started using the technology in the workplace less than six months ago, and 66% of them reported bringing their own AI to work, slightly more than the national average of 63%. According to the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, only 10% of businesses have a "formal comprehensive policy in place" on AI.
For some businesses, the use of outside AI has raised security concerns. Multiple businesses in the Pittsburgh area are offering services to address this.
Cloud infrastructure company Expedient recently unveiled its "secure AI gateway," a service that gives companies specialized access to large language model AI software like ChatGPT with security boundaries in place for confidential information.
"As more and more users embrace [AI] in their everyday work, the risk of leaking sensitive or confidential information goes up exponentially, which represents a material risk for an organization," Expedient CEO Bryan Smith said in a prepared statement.
Preamble, a startup based out of downtown, launched a similar service in April. The service integrates privacy and security controls to ChatGPT and Mistral AI.
"We're headed towards an AI-centered world," Preamble CEO Jeremy McHugh said to the Pittsburgh Business Times in April. "I think it's going to be implemented in such a way that there are AI-centric services and applications where you might not even know that it is AI."
