Verizon to invest $70 million in AI training effort

Verizon is investing $70 ​million in a nationwide ​effort to provide ‌AI training to ​job seekers, small business and educators as the U.S. economy undergoes ‌a dramatic transformation, it said on Wednesday. The U.S. telecom company is partnering major non-profit programs such as Goodwill Industries and ‌aims to offer AI training to hundreds of ‌thousands of people using training resources from companies including IBM, Google , Anthropic, Microsoft and OpenAI.

"AI will change the face of the ⁠workforce," ​Verizon CEO ⁠Dan Schulman said in an interview. "You have to do this in ⁠order to protect the democracy." Schulman wants large companies to join ​the effort to boost funding to help workers acquire ⁠skills for specific AI-related jobs. "It's in the self-interest of all business ⁠leaders ​to step up," Schulman said. "If every Fortune 100 (company) put $50 million or $70 million into this, we have a ⁠multibillion-dollar fund."

Verizon announced last year that it was investing $20 million to help ⁠departing ⁠employees gain AI skills after it announced it was cutting 13,000 jobs. The new ‌effort ‌adds $50 million.