Companies are looking for AI experts, “more than half of whom are impossible to find”

“Italian businesses are stepping up their investment in artificial intelligence but are unable to find the skilled staff needed to manage it,” warns Confartigianato, which, in an in-depth analysis looking ahead to 2025, calculates: “Of 621,000 job vacancies for workers with advanced digital skills, as many as 316,000 – equivalent to 50.8 per cent – proved difficult to fill”. They are “nowhere to be found”. Meanwhile, looking at global giants in the sector, such as Anthropic – which could exceed $65 billion in turnover this year, seven times more than in 2025 – writes Bloomberg, noting that the company could make its Wall Street debut as early as this autumn – the challenges of the digital transition affect every business, right down to SMEs and craftspeople. And on this front, too, we see the paradox – already observed in many sectors – of companies ready to hire but unable to find the skills they need.Recruitment in the AI sector is growing rapidly, as highlighted by a LinkedIn analysis which emphasises that women have fewer opportunities even compared to recruitment in other fields of expertise: in 2025, they accounted for just 26 per cent of AI recruitment in the United States, compared with 50 per cent of recruitment in other professions.

Confartigianato takes stock of the situation in Italia, region by region and city by city, regarding the search for skills to utilise and integrate artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the Industrial Internet of Things, data analytics and big data, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain into business processes.

Lombardy is “clearly in the lead in terms of the number of workers with advanced digital skills that businesses are struggling to find: 60,960 unfilled vacancies out of 121,440 requests, or 50.2 per cent”, followed by “Campania, with 31,130 out of 66,950 vacancies (46.5 per cent), and then Lazio, where 30,780 workers are missing from a total of 66,760 vacancies (46.1 per cent)”. At provincial level, Milan comes first “with 29,840 unfilled vacancies out of 64,320, or 46.4 per cent”; then “Rome, where businesses are unsuccessfully seeking 24,580 workers out of 55,240 (44.5 per cent), whilst Naples has 16,200 hard-to-find workers out of 36,010 (45 per cent).”

“Artificial intelligence,” warns Marco Granelli, President of Confartigianato, “can become a powerful driver of productivity and competitiveness, but to capitalise on its opportunities, we need people capable of managing it. The challenge posed by AI is, first and foremost, a skills challenge: we need to strengthen training, improve links between schools, universities, the education system and businesses, and ensure that micro and small enterprises also have access to the necessary skills.” According to estimates by Confartigianato’s research department, 71.8 per cent of businesses have invested in at least one area of the digital transition.

“The lack of qualified staff is cited by 58.6 per cent of businesses as the main obstacle to using AI. This is followed by a lack of legislative clarity (47.3 per cent), the unavailability or poor quality of the necessary data (45.2 per cent), concerns about privacy and data protection (43.2 per cent), high costs (43 per cent) and ethical considerations (25.7 per cent)”.