Cedefop study: Four AI scenarios for continuous skills development by 2040 

The National Skills Alliance underlines the importance of preparing for the future through innovative approaches to skills development.Cedefop’s recent foresight study highlights four (4) scenarios based on artificial intelligence (AI), highlighting challenges and opportunities up to 2040.

Global Force Transformation

The field of continuous skills development is facing profound changes due to intertwined global factors such as the climate crisis, demographic change, changing labour markets and the rapid deployment of AI. Cedefop's study examines these trends and concludes that AI is emerging as a dominant but otherwise unpredictable force that will determine Continuing Skills Development (CSD) by 2040. In Greece, where the National Coalition strengthens and communicates actions for digital skills, this analysis highlights the need for immediate adaptation of national strategies.

Four AI-Based Scenarios

Based on a broad consultation of politicians, social partners, citizens’ organisations and education providers across the EU, Cedefop’s study presents four AI scenarios not as predictions, but as investigative tools . These identify opportunities, risks and priorities for a sustainable future in skills:

• Scenario A: A Future of Opportunities. Optimistic setting where AI enhances human capabilities, fosters inclusive growth and creates meaningful professions.
• Scenario B: Isolation and drifting “by current”. Social divide from AI shocks, with responsibility for skills development passed on to individuals, leading to qualification-based polarisation.
• Scenario C: Survival without risk. Slow adoption of AI, without major disruptions but with a waste of economic and social potential.
• Scenario D: Unrestricted AI . Dystopia with massive job losses, where AI serves control and profits, eroding rights and cohesion.

Critical "Red Flags"

A common message from all scenarios is the need for inclusive, adaptive lifelong learning strategies. The study singles out six (6) cross-cutting challenges that require immediate intervention:

1. AI duality: AI can empower individuals, but it also risks concentrating power and wealth, threatening democracy and social cohesion.
2. Labour transformation: AI can enhance roles and work, but it can also accelerate a massive replacement of positions.
3. Personalisation of learning: AI can contribute in this regard, but only with safeguards and through an ethical use.
4. Individual liability: AI must lead to empowering all individuals to manage their development paths, not just some.
5. Changes in the working environment: flexibility in new forms of work but at the same time precariousness and weakening of collective bargaining power.
6. Widening inequalities: Unequal adaptation to technological change with the risk of exacerbating inequalities.

Steps of change

Traditional institution-focused CVET models are not enough. A radical shift to lifelong and ubiquitous learning is needed, taking advantage of institutional, self-learning and work environments. This requires cooperative governance between the state, partners, citizens and teachers.

The strategic choices today will determine whether Greece builds a resilient workforce for the AI era, for the future: enhancing collaborations, promoting inclusive policies and investing in skills that combine AI with human creativity. Through such steps, the country can turn threats into opportunities, aligning itself with European goals. Cedefop's study is a guide to this path, strengthening Greece's role in the European Skills Agenda.

*Download here in .pdf Cedefop’s study “Preparing for 2040 – Four AI-powered scenarios for the future of advanced skills development”.