This is one of the recommendations included in the considerations on public and business policies for the normalization of AI.
The study highlights a “very low concern about job substitution: 64.7% are little or not worried; only 6.1% are very worried,” which “may reveal confidence, but may also just be a manifestation of ignorance.”
In this regard, Magma suggests that “Portugal could and should adopt a clear strategy aligned with the most advanced countries in AI,” recommending a National AI Requalification Plan, featuring training credits, modular certifications, partial funding, and ethical and security literacy in higher education.
Other recommendations include developing a responsible AI national standard for businesses with minimum requirements for governance, auditing, and transparency, providing fiscal and financial incentives for companies using this technology to complement rather than replace workers, creating the Portuguese AI Maturity Index monitored annually, and an AI program for SMEs, “supported by the state, with subsidized consulting, use case kits, and rapid pilots,” according to the document.
The study concludes that there is a need for “rapid but deep training, rather than just an introduction.”
Nearly two-thirds (64.6%) of respondents in the study have not had training in generative AI, and among those who have, most received less than three hours of only introductory content, the document states.
Therefore, Magma recommends creating “national upskilling programs of 20 – 30 hours focused on real use cases by function,” from finance to legal, including human resources, among others, and “encouraging companies to offer internal training paths for their employees, with modular certifications and progression by levels.”
It also recommends encouraging mandatory continuous AI training every year and launching “a system of AI fluency levels, inspired by the European language model (A1-C2), adapted to the business and educational reality of generative AI.”
According to the study, “94.8% are already using AI, but only 30.3% feel the company is adopting it in a structured way,” thus Magma suggests implementing basic AI governance “in all companies with more than 50 employees (guidelines, risks, rules for sensitive data, approved tools).”
The creation of an internal AI Task Force “that maps use cases and creates practical playbooks,” incorporating the technology into annual planning, conducting usage pilots with AI by team (e.g., legal, operations, commercial), and creating the ‘AI Champions’ per department, an ‘operational evangelist’ who supports local adoption, are other measures suggested.
To reduce the knowledge asymmetry within companies, publishing internal information about where AI is being used, results, and upcoming initiatives, holding quarterly ‘AI Townhalls,’ i.e., “internal project demos, sharing learnings, roadmaps,” and including an ‘AI in 60 seconds’ section in murals, newsletters, and intranets are recommended.
Magma further recommends “encouraging the advanced use of gen-AI tools,” which include autonomous agents, among others.
The study “AI – Impact and Future” is a research coordinated by Magma Studio, in partnership with CIP and DSPA – Data Science Portuguese Association, gathering opinions from 2,762 people online between June and October this year.
Regarding the sample, 60.3% of respondents are professionals from companies and/or freelancers, and 39.7% are university students.
