AI Skills For Freelancers: How To Succeed In The Modern Age

A freelancer needs many skills. Being essentially a micro-business, you have to know so much more than just your narrow expertise. Of course, no amount of marketing can make up for a badly written copy or script. Still, you need soft skills: how to find and retain customers, how to communicate with them, how to advertise your services, and so on. However, things are changing. AI has entered the arena of freelancing. How do you keep ahead of competitors in the age of AI skills? Let’s take a look at what AI brings to the future of freelancing.

AI Skills: The Context

AI is quite a disruptive innovation. It has been transforming the daily operations in very many areas of human activity — from healthcare to military and beyond. Freelancers will find that simple, repetitive tasks are increasingly handled by AI. It does not mean that humans are substituted, however. It means that a modern freelancer needs to know how to work with AI, using it to their own benefit and that of their client.

As AI takes care of simple activities, crucial human qualities like creativity and strategic thinking are becoming more important. You need to nurture those abilities of your brain that AI does not seem to grasp at this point. As long as you can offer your unique, human touch, you will remain in demand together with the AI you are using.

Nowadays, expertise is worth more than a degree — at least, to a freelancer. Almost three-fourth of executives reported that they were more interested in skills than education. However, those skills need to be proven! A portfolio might help. This is very good news to people who cannot afford an education but are good at learning on their own. 

Finally, remember that this is the age of remote work. More and more businesses employ freelancers from all over the world. However, remote work comes with its challenges. By learning how to effectively communicate using modern tools, you make yourself a more hirable freelancer.

AI Skills in Demand

AI skills are growing in popularity very much. Here are a few of them that are very promising.

Coding

This is a central skill in AI. It is also one that is probably impossible to master. There are too many languages, and new ones arise every now and then, making it necessary to specialize. Select the languages that you find interesting and focus on them.

Low or No-Code Development

There are no-code or low-code tools for almost anything these days — from apps to bots. There are even AI no-code website builders. AI is naturally a part of no-code building, and you need to learn to use it if you choose this path.

Data Science

Data scientists gather, clean and make sense of all the information a business or another entity (for example, a government department) produces. They can also be using that data to create predictive models. The point is in making decisions based on the data. With how much data humans are producing right now, the skills of a data scientist are in great demand. AI can be a very useful tool in the hands of such a specialist.

Cloud Engineering

Working with clouds — for example, setting up cloud databases or checking an existing solution for efficiency — is a very useful set of skills. Cloud engineers are in demand and become more and more sought-after as more and more businesses choose cloud-based solutions. AI is very important for cloud engineering, affecting it through automation and cybersecurity among other things. If you are a cloud engineer, you will be using AI a lot.

Website Design and Development

This skill — or, rather, set of skills — is crucial nowadays because every business and many other entities require a website these days. But you do not just create a website once; you need to maintain and redesign it every few years. Additionally, user experience and user interface are arguably also a part of this subset of skills. AI can help you with code and design; some platforms even use AI to create websites! So you need to learn to work with AI if you are a website designer.

Content Creation and Editing

Content is crucial for websites and apps these days. It is also quite diverse — from text to video. If you decide to develop this set of skills, you will probably choose something to focus on. AI augments your human creativity in this area. You can and should use AI (unless your client does not like the idea) to improve your craft. As a result, you need to be good at creating content together with AI. Skills like prompt creation become crucial in this regard. 

Other AI Skills You Need as a Freelancer

Aside from hard skills like programming or content writing, you need a lot of other skills. Here are the ones that matter the most in the age of AI.

• Working with AI. This is a skill you naturally need as AI becomes widespread. Aside from knowing how to create the best prompts, you also need to be aware of the strengths and limitations of AI. In particular, you should always be ready to check what AI is telling you for truthfulness since, unfortunately, AI can make errors.
• Research. In connection to AI making errors, it is very important that you learn how to fact-check it. Research online requires knowing how to word your prompts and which sources to trust. It is usually governmental or educational websites that are most trustworthy.
• Communication. Nowadays, a lot of communication between freelancers and buyers happens via text. AI can help you create texts instantly, and they are probably going to be good. However, it is also wise to write messages yourself since clients often do not like to be greeted with an AI message. Consider using AI to improve your personally-crafted communication. 
• Adaptability and learning. Learning is a skill! You need to learn your entire life, becoming better at your AI skills and other abilities. In addition, be flexible. Changes are happening, and AI is a massive one. Approach it with curiosity and an open mind, and you will become indispensable. 

AI is not going to exterminate us. It's a tool that's going to empower us.

Oren Etzioni, scientist

In Conclusion

AI skills are important for any freelancer. Even if you do not work with technology and are a content creator, AI is changing the future. AI is taking over repetitive and simple tasks, and that makes human intelligence, creativity, and critical thinking more valuable. As a freelancer, you need to know how to work with AI and make it help you while you adapt to this new reality.