Align training with the job revolution
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In a world where landmarks are shaking, one certainty remains: it’s skills that will make the difference. The job revolution is underway. The question is no longer whether it will happen, but whether our training systems will be able to adapt in time.
A transformation more than a disappearance of jobs
The revolution brought about by artificial intelligence isn’t uniform. Some jobs will disappear. Others will be only slightly affected. The vast majority will be transformed, like the well-known “white-collar” jobs: engineers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, journalists. These jobs won’t be eliminated, but they’ll need to reinvent themselves. It’s not about replacing humans, but about enhancing them.
The challenge for schools is having to change while no one really knows exactly what the final impact of generative AI will be on jobs as we know them today. The Paris IDF Chamber of Commerce, through 14 schools including HEC, ESCP, ESSEC, Gobelins, Ferrandi, and its programs from CAP to Master’s level, offers an overview of private non-profit higher education. Every year, we train 44,000 students, including 16,000 apprentices and 36,000 adults in continuing education.
Train as closely as possible to economic needs
Our first principle is simple: listen to businesses. The Paris IDF Chamber of Commerce has always designed its schools in direct connection with economic needs. Today, 400,000 jobs remain unfilled in France due to a lack of suitable candidates. This staggering number speaks volumes about the urgency: even before talking about AI, training programs need to be aligned with high-demand jobs. Companies should be fully involved in shaping curricula, not as clients, but as design partners.
A generation raised on new tools, but not immune to risks
On the student side, one signal is telling: according to the Crédoc barometer, 85% of 18-24-year-olds have already adopted AI, a level of adoption never seen this quickly in 25 years. This generation won’t discover AI when entering the professional world—they’re already immersed in it. But this familiarity shouldn’t hide a real risk: the gradual erosion of cognitive abilities when delegating to machines replaces thinking.
Because AI doesn’t think for us. It synthesizes, predicts, generates, but it also hallucinates, makes mistakes, and reproduces biases. To be the master of it, not the assistant, you need to know things, organize your thoughts, spot errors, and develop a personal opinion. The basics of fundamental knowledge—reading, understanding, reasoning, arguing—aren’t negotiable. They’re more than ever the foundation on which everything else rests.
Equipping young people with AI means teaching them to prompt accurately, to exercise critical thinking, to take a creative approach to the tool. Being enhanced, not replaced: that’s the goal!
Schools that experiment rather than theorize
Our schools don’t theorize: they experiment. ESCP, which has signed a partnership with OpenAI, will open a School of Technology dedicated to AI, big data, and cybersecurity, then a School of Governance focused on geopolitics and international law, which shows that technical skills cannot be separated from an understanding of the world. ESSEC has partnered with Mistral AI to integrate AI into the core of its teaching practices. Ferrandi has introduced 3D printing into cooking and created a space dedicated to creativity and experimentation.
Continuing education, a process that’s now permanent
But the vast majority of workers haven’t learned with ChatGPT; continuing education needs to become an ongoing process. In our schools, continuing education is built as closely as possible to the evolution of jobs, in real time, keeping pace with technological changes and the new opportunities they create.
Navigating in a world without landmarks doesn’t mean going in blind, but it does require equipping yourself with new compasses. Education is one of the most strategic because even if machines can execute tasks, it’s still humans who decide, create, and act.