The University of Bath has announced its first AI specific master’s degree which will start accepting students from October 2024. 

This will be the first AI specific master’s degree course available to engineering students in the UK and will teach them how to apply AI skills to engineering and design. The university has stated that its course will include AI ethics in the curriculum. 

Whilst several higher education institutions offer courses that are related to AI, the University of Bath states that this will be the first course to specifically train students in AI engineering and design applications. 

“Engineering and design professionals will be greatly affected by the digital transformation offered by AI tools,” stated Professor Manuchehr Soleimani, who was the course’s coordinator. 

“Participants in the course will explore AI and machine learning algorithms, learn how AI can help transform society through technological advancements, and understand and prepare for the impact, ethics, and human factors surrounding this new form of technology,” said Soleimani. 

Knowledge of AI is slowly becoming more important as previous research by the Oxford Internet Institute stated that AI skills can increase worker salary by as much as 40% when combined with other technical skills. 

In a 2023 survey conducted by research and analysis company GlobalData, nearly 20% of businesses stated that they had a high adoption rate of AI into their daily workflows. 

As AI becomes ubiquitous within the workplace across a wide range of sectors, many workers will need to pick up the skills to use and understand AI. 

The Digital Marketing Institute (DMI) has also released an online AI course, in an attempt to plug the widening AI knowledge gap after internal surveys showed that AI skills were highly sought after from their members. 

“AI is arguably the biggest trend to hit the marketing sector in more than a decade,” stated the DMI’s CEO Ken Fitzpatrick, adding: “New tools are being released daily and AI’s ability to enhance marketing strategies is increasing all the time.” 

“The beauty of the AI in Digital Marketing course is that the skills our students learn are easily and immediately implementable, meaning marketers can apply their knowledge to optimise their work the following day,” he said.

As AI continues its rollout, employers may be looking more desirably towards candidates who have AI certifications and experience.