Coursera-Aws research reveals technology leaders prioritize cloud, AI skills to drive transformation

Coursera Chief Technology Officer Mustafa Furniturewala

As cloud and AI reshape the way technology work is executed, today’s technology leaders face unprecedented transformation challenges. To understand how technology leaders respond to these challenges, Coursera worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to investigate senior technology executives leading digital transformation initiatives. The results are released in a new report today From the cloud to AI: How technology leaders invest in skills development to drive transformationreveals how these senior decision makers prioritize skills development needs, balance AI implementation with human capabilities, and build their transformation roadmap.

Key findings:

• For technology leaders, it’s more than just AI. While both Cloud and Genai transformation are major three-year goals, technology leaders are prioritizing the development of fundamental skills such as cloud, data and cybersecurity, and AI skills.
  • Most technology leaders believe that cloud (95%) and Genai (91%) transformation are key business goals for the next three years.
  • When identifying key skills for the next three years, leaders prioritize cloud skills (63%), data skills (58%), cybersecurity skills (54%) and AI skills (47%).
  • The first driving force for the urgency of skill development among technology leaders is keeping pace with technology.

• Technology leaders are preparing for automation to transform their teams, workflows and workplace needs. Respondents predict that they and their team will see up to half of the tasks automated by AI in three years, while 86% expect that at least one-fifth of organizational code will be AI-generated or assisted by AI-AI-AI-AI-AI-AI-CASS.
  • Almost every respondent expects that some of their own tasks will increase through AI over the next three years, while more than half (52%) expect 30% to 50% of their own tasks to be automated, freeing up more strategic working hours. This reflects how technology leaders (53%) expect tasks to be automated to impact the teams they manage.
  • Almost all (99%) of respondents expect their code base to be generated or developed through AI aid over the next 3 years, and 86% of technology leaders expect 20% to 50% of their code base to be 20% to 50% of AI aid, or developed through AI aid.
  • More than three quarters of respondents (78%) believe that all the technical roles involved in this survey will be affected in some way, due to the development of AI in the next three years. Software developer (42%) and system developer roles (41%) are expected to experience the biggest impact.

• Despite the increasing level of automation, leaders stress that human contributions are still irreplaceable: 88% say that AI transformation goals will not be successful without more investment in talent development.
  • 63% of technology leaders agree that non-technical teams always underestimate the resources and training needed to achieve Genai goals.
  • Most technology leaders (72%) expect new employees, regardless of their specific role, to understand how generative AI is applied to their work tasks; however, many leaders (74%) acknowledge that they cannot bridge the AI skills gap by relying solely on new employees.
  • 88% of leaders agree that planned AI investments will not be successful without increasing their training investment, while 77% realize that UPSKILLING is crucial to achieving transformation goals over the next 12-18 months.
  • Most technology leaders (86%) report the highest benefits of improving the height of skill development to significant productivity, with improved performance (72%), higher workforce agility (67%) and increased employee engagement (59%).

• Technology leaders believe that training is the most valuable when it simulates real-world challenges, improving practical, hands-on learning experiences and providing employees with opportunities to use their learning skills immediately.
  • Most technology leaders believe adopting new skills (60%), high-quality content written by industry experts (56%), and being able to customize training content for team needs (55%) are crucial factors.
  • When creating hands-on learning experiences for technical teams, most technology leaders prioritize realistic projects directly related to the work (60%), practical skills assessments (56%), and risk-free experiments (51%) as the most valuable elements.

Our global research between March 2025 and April 2025 captures insights from large enterprise organizations ranging from IT, product and engineering leaders, product and engineering leaders, product and engineering leaders, over 1,000 employees and annual revenues of over $100 million. Their response provides strategic insights into how organizations can successfully integrate cloud infrastructure, AI capabilities and talent development to drive competitive advantage in an increasingly automated future.
Access the full insights from the Tech Leader Survey from here.