What Does ‘AI Experience’ Actually Mean?

Nearly one in ten UK job postings now mention AI or related tools. But if you’re one of the people applying for those jobs, there’s a fairly important question hiding behind that statistic: what actually counts as AI experience?

According to Indeed’s 2026 Mid-Year UK Jobs & Hiring Trends Report, 9.4% of UK job postings now mention AI or related tools, up from 5.6% towards the end of 2025. As AI becomes part of more jobs, it’s understandable that organisations are looking for people who know how to work with it, but what’s much less clear is what employers actually mean when they put AI experience into a job description.

• For some roles, that might mean knowing how LLMs work or having experience implementing AI within a business.
• For others, it could be understanding where AI might improve a customer journey, knowing when it isn’t the right answer, or simply having the curiosity to keep learning as the technology changes.

I recently asked the GAIA-CC community specifically in relation to customer experience, and got four quite different answers. Which, in itself, probably tells us something.

What Counts As AI Experience?

Sam Davison questioned whether experience is even the right way to describe it:

// “Hard to classify ‘experience’ for something so new… maybe ‘aptitude’ or ‘innovation’ would be better?”

Munawwar Ahmad had a much broader definition. For him, AI experience in a CX role could include understanding the theory behind modern LLMs, identifying opportunities to use AI within CX and understanding both the commercial benefits and the risks. He would also look for practical experience of AI within customer service transformation and configuring AI features within CX, CCaaS and CRM products.

Craig Reynolds focused more on application:

// “For me it would be more around how they understand the application of AI within your environment and the journey of your customers. What they need to know depends on the role being recruited for.”

James Parkin offered possibly the simplest answer of the lot:

// “In my experience it often translates as knowing as much or more than the person interviewing you.”

Four answers, then, but four slightly different ideas of what AI experience might actually mean. That variation becomes particularly interesting when you look at what organisations are actually doing as they try to recruit for a workplace that is changing around them.

Hiring For Something We’re Still Defining

I explored the same question with Michelle Ansell from Douglas Jackson, who has worked in Executive Search, Recruitment and Leadership Advisory for over two decades. From what she’s seeing, organisations know change is coming, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve worked out how to translate it into the people they need.

She described businesses going to market with existing job descriptions, adding a few new requirements and then struggling to find the talent they’re looking for. At the same time, there’s pressure from boards to do something with AI without always having a clear idea of the problem they’re trying to solve or what the organisation might look like several years from now.

There is genuine demand for AI skills, but they’re also being added onto existing roles. A technology, data or commercial leader might suddenly find AI and analytics sitting within their remit, sometimes because they’re the person who is most curious or interested in the subject rather than because the organisation has designed an entirely new role around it. In that environment, defining AI experience becomes even harder because the answer could be completely different depending on the job and what the organisation actually expects that person to do.

Experience Or Aptitude?

Some roles clearly require specific technical knowledge. If you’re recruiting someone to build or configure AI systems, experience with the technology itself is going to matter. Outside those roles, though, the picture becomes much less obvious, particularly when the technology is moving quickly enough that today’s expertise with a particular tool doesn’t necessarily tell us how well someone will adapt to whatever comes next.

When I asked whether organisations were being realistic about the AI talent they were trying to hire, Michelle’s answer was fairly straightforward: “No.”

What followed was interesting because the qualities she identified weren’t really about being an AI expert at all. She talked about people who are “super curious, super inquisitive, very humble”: people who appreciate how much they don’t know and are willing to learn, test things and ask what might feel like stupid questions.

It comes surprisingly close to Sam’s response to my original GAIA-CC question. If the technology is changing underneath us, aptitude may sometimes tell us more than a particular type of experience.

So What Should We Be Looking For?

The 9.4% figure will probably keep climbing. Indeed’s latest data already shows AI spreading beyond specialist technology jobs into areas including HR, management, marketing and finance. But the responses to one fairly simple question show why adding AI experience to a job description isn’t necessarily enough.

For Munawwar, it encompasses technical understanding, commercial thinking, risk, transformation and practical application. For Craig, it depends on the role and the customer journey. Sam questions whether experience is the right measure at all, while James points to the awkward reality that the person being recruited may already know more about AI than the person assessing them.

Taken together, those answers bring the question back to something slightly more fundamental. The skills that matter may increasingly include curiosity, humility, experimentation and the ability to look at an old problem in a completely different way.

Perhaps, then, before asking candidates whether they have enough AI experience, organisations need to answer a question of their own: what do we actually need this person to be able to do with it?

About GAIA-CC – The Global Association of Independent AI and CX Consultants

GAIA-CC is a global community of more than 250 independent CX, CCaaS and AI consultants and analysts who influence enterprise technology decisions. It brings together these independent voices through industry events, briefings and market intelligence, including its current Market Pulse research into what consultants are recommending across CCaaS, Conversational and Agentic AI, and Sovereign AI. The organisation aims to give vendors greater insight into, and access to, the independent experts increasingly shaping customer buying decisions.

To find out more join us at www.gaia-cc.com