Recruitment teams are facing mounting pressure to develop an AI-ready workforce, as chief executive officers increasingly look to them to address the growing skills gap in artificial intelligence, according to a new LinkedIn report.

LinkedIn's latest survey of 1,000 talent acquisition professionals in the US and UK revealed that 86% are now being tasked by their CEOs with building the workforce of the future.

It comes as only four in 10 business leaders express satisfaction with their AI progress, according to the report.

Half of leaders pointed out that there is an emerging performance gap between employees who embrace AI to reimagine how work is done, and those who only use it for basic tasks or not at all.

Challenge for recruiters

But as CEOs turn to their recruitment teams, LinkedIn found that just 34% of recruiters said they are AI power users.

These are employees who blend AI and human skills to drive strategic impact aligned with business goals, according to the report. Among them, 66% said AI is helping them spend more time as a strategic talent adviser, while 64% said it helps them improve candidate experience.

"Recruiters who are 'AI power users' are setting the pace for agentic hiring," said Mark Lobosco, Vice President of LinkedIn Talent Solutions, in a statement.

On the other hand, 47% of recruiters said their teams are only practitioners, who use AI to boost productivity for their own roles, but not to drive strategic impact.

Recruiters acknowledge that not having AI skills in the next 12 months will result in:

• Falling behind competitors (45%)
• Struggling to attract top talent (41%)
• Missing growth targets (38%)

AI use in recruitment among employers has surged by 428.7% since 2023, according to the latest data from iHire, with the most common uses including writing job ads, composing messages, and screening CVs.

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