Verizon to invest $70 million in AI training effort

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Verizon is investing $70 million in a nationwide effort to ‌provide AI training to job seekers, small ‌business and educators as the U.S. economy undergoes a ​dramatic transformation, it said on Wednesday.

The U.S. telecom company is partnering major non-profit programs such as Goodwill Industries and aims to offer ‌AI training to ⁠hundreds of thousands of people using training resources from companies including IBM, ⁠Google, Anthropic, Microsoft and OpenAI.

"AI will change the face of the workforce," Verizon CEO Dan ​Schulman said ​in an interview. "You ​have to do ‌this in order to protect the democracy."

Schulman wants large companies to join the effort to boost funding to help workers acquire skills for specific AI-related jobs. "It's in the self-interest of ‌all business leaders to ​step up," Schulman said. "If every ​Fortune 100 (company) ​put $50 million or $70 million into this, ‌we have a multibillion-dollar ​fund."

Verizon announced ​last year that it was investing $20 million to help departing employees gain AI skills ​after it ‌announced it was cutting 13,000 jobs. The ​new effort adds $50 million.

(Reporting by David ​ShepardsonEditing by David Goodman)