Google announces AI Works for Italy initiative

Google announces the AI Works for Italy initiative, a $2 million investment to train 13,000 university students about to enter the workforce, along with new courses dedicated to workers who want to integrate artificial intelligence into their daily work, CE Report quotes ANSA.

"To transform Italy’s immense potential into real growth, we must focus on its most important resource: people. With AI Works for Italy, we want to ensure that today’s and tomorrow’s workers have access to the training and tools needed to make AI a driver of opportunity for the entire country,” said Melissa Ferretti Peretti, VP and Country Manager of Google Italy.

The $2 million allocated to Italian universities is provided by Google.org through the non-profits Inco and Chance.

Thanks to this support, the NewFutures:AI program will be made available “at no cost” to participating universities. The universities of Roma Tre, Salerno, and Sassari are the first to launch the program.

The new AI study programs will specifically target students heading into sectors where demand for these skills is expected to grow most rapidly: ICT, administration, logistics, marketing, and finance. Inco identified these areas by combining employment data from the OECD and the European Commission with interviews involving over 1,500 employers and job seekers. The analysis—conducted using artificial intelligence on 31 million entry-level job postings across EU member states and the UK—revealed that 24% already require AI-related skills. This trend is also confirmed in Italy, where 21% of nearly 1.4 million job postings analyzed mention AI skills, with peaks in production processes and logistics, followed by management control and accounting.

Google also announced a new intensive course, Google AI Professional, designed to encourage Italian workers to use artificial intelligence tools effectively and with impact. Through practical exercises based on real workplace scenarios, the course explores the potential of AI in everyday work.