As UK graduate vacancies hit their lowest level since 2020, Salesforce is offering free AI tools to six million students to help them meet employers’ growing demand for artificial intelligence skills.
The US tech giant announced the scheme on Thursday, giving universities and colleges access to its workplace platform Slack and AI tools to help prepare graduates for a changing job market.
The move comes amid growing fears that AI is replacing entry-level tasks, threatening traditional routes into employment even as businesses scramble to recruit workers with new skills.
Salesforce UK chief executive Zahra Bahrololoumi told City AM that AI was already reshaping recruitment, with businesses increasingly prioritising candidates who could work alongside the technology.
“We’re very clearly seeing businesses wanting to hire people that can work fluently with AI”, she said. “I think it has reshaped what we understand to be existing or traditional jobs”, she added, pointing to emerging roles including AI ethicists, designers and testers.
However, Bahrololoumi rejected suggestions that AI would permanently reduce opportunities for graduates.
“We can’t hire enough at the minute for deployed engineers”, she said. “We are literally hiring for computer science graduates”.
Students will get access to Slack Enterprise and its AI features, with universities controlling how they use the technology.
Salesforce said it would work with institutions to assess whether the scheme improved graduate employment outcomes.
AI threatens graduate career ladder
The announcement follows a warning from International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva this week that AI’s impact on employment was a “slow-moving tsunami”.
The IMF estimates that AI could affect 60 per cent of jobs in advanced economies, with younger workers particularly vulnerable as companies automate routine tasks that have traditionally provided entry points into professional careers.
A recent OECD report published in July found that nearly four in five London jobs were highly exposed to generative AI, reflecting the capital’s concentration of professional and financial services roles.
However, exposure does not necessarily mean job losses, and evidence that AI is already driving widespread unemployment remains limited.
Bahrololoumi acknowledged the urgency of Britain’s digital skills gap, warning that young people risk entering the workforce without the skills employers increasingly require.
“I am very firmly of the belief that we’ve got a digital skills gap”, she told City AM.
She argued that businesses, universities and government shared responsibility for preparing workers for AI-driven jobs.
“I think it’s really hard to just say that the government is responsible”, she said. “We’ve all got a responsibility”.
The scheme forms part of Salesforce’s $6bn (£4.53bn) UK investment commitment through 2030, which includes an expanded London AI campus.