Agenda

This session showcases the ILO´s integrated approach to preparing workers, institutions, and systems for the challenges and opportunities of AI and digital transformation. It highlights how the ILO is addressing critical areas—skills development, labour market transitions, workplace safety, and inclusive learning—through a coordinated response rooted in decent work and social justice.

The session opens with “Skills for a Digital Future” presented by Juan Iván Martín, Skills Digitalisation Specialist at ILO. The presentation emphasizes the urgent need to equip workers—especially women, youth, and TVET graduates—with foundational, intermediate, and advanced digital skills. Drawing on ILO projections, Martín explains how digital transformation is reshaping job profiles and widening inequalities due to uneven technology adoption and digital divides. The presentation outlines a systems-level response for national skills systems: expanding broadband, investing in TVET reform, promoting lifelong learning, and ensuring equity in digital access and participation. These measures are essential to enable all workers to thrive in a digital economy and reflect ILO’s global work on skills for inclusive digitalization.

Next, Manal Azzi, Team Lead on OSH Policy at ILO, presents “Redefining Safety and Health at Work: The Role of AI and Robots”. While not traditionally seen as part of digital skills discussions, occupational safety is evolving rapidly with AI integration. Azzi shows how smart tools, sensors, and robotics are transforming workplace safety by predicting hazards and reducing risk exposure. However, the presentation also warns of new psychosocial and algorithmic risks introduced by automated systems. The takeaway: digital literacy must include understanding the risks of working with AI systems and the importance of embedding worker protections in digital environments.

Sher Verick, Adviser to the ILO Deputy Director-General, follows with “Generative AI Impact on Jobs”. Presenting research from the ILO’s AI and Work Observatory, he highlights how one in four jobs globally shows exposure to Generative AI—affecting occupations differently across gender and skill levels. The session discusses how governments and institutions can manage this transition by focusing on reskilling, especially in sectors where automation may displace routine tasks. Digital skills policies must anticipate such shifts and address equity gaps, especially for women.

Concluding the session, Tom Wambeke, Chief of Learning Innovation at ITC-ILO, presents “Moving Beyond Artificial Ignorance: Upskilling for a Critical AI Future”. This presentation reframes digital skills not just as technical competencies, but as part of critical, ethical, and human-centered learning systems. Wambeke showcases how the ITC-ILO’s AI curriculum helps educators and institutions design responsive, learner-driven digital training, identifying points where AI can enhance—not replace—human instruction. His message reinforces the need for agile, values-based learning ecosystems in the digital age.

Together, the presentations reinforce the importance of building inclusive, responsive, and forward-looking digital skills systems that empower all workers in the age of AI.