This week, Opportunity@Work and the Brookings Institution launched something called the AI Readiness Lab. Six regions joined the first group. One of them is Indiana, through the CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership.
That is a good sign for the state. It means the people who plan Indiana's economy are treating AI as a jobs question, the way they would treat a major plant deciding whether to stay.
It is also only part of the work. The Lab is built to protect a region. It was never built to sit down with one worker and rebuild one career before the job changes underneath them. That part is still yours.
Here is what the program does, why Indiana being in it is good news, and the layer it leaves to you.
What is the AI Readiness Lab?
The AI Readiness Lab is a six-month program from Opportunity@Work and Brookings. It helps regional economies prepare for the way AI is starting to reshape the paths workers use to move into better jobs.
Opportunity@Work is a nonprofit focused on STARs. That stands for workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes, people who built their skills through work, training, or the military rather than a four-year degree. There are more than 70 million of them in the country.
The concern behind the Lab is specific. According to Brookings research cited in the launch, nearly half of the paths between entry-level jobs and higher-paying ones are highly exposed to AI. More than 15 million STARs hold jobs in that exposed group.
STARs hold jobs in the career paths most exposed to AI. That figure is the reason the Lab exists.
Source: Brookings, 2026Over six months, the six regions will map how healthy their local career paths are, figure out where AI presses hardest, and build plans to protect the paths that still work while opening new ones. Opportunity@Work's larger goal is to move 1 million STARs into 10 million jobs and add $100 billion in earnings by 2035.
That is real work, aimed at a real problem. Good.
Why Indiana being in the first cohort is good news
Indiana did not wait. It signed up to study what AI does to actual jobs while there is still time to plan.
The CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership brings the state's largest employers to one table. Putting that table on the AI question means the people who hire thousands of Hoosiers are looking at the same change you feel at your desk. That is real progress for the state, and it is the kind of move worth applauding.
So none of what follows is a knock on the Lab or on Indiana joining it. It is a good decision. The point is what a program like this can and cannot do.
What the regional layer does well
A regional program works at the altitude of a region. That is its strength.
It can see the whole board. Which industries are exposed. Which career paths are drying up. Which employers need to retrain people instead of replacing them. One worker cannot see any of that. A coalition of employers and researchers can.
It can also move resources. Grants, training dollars, employer commitments, policy. Those things live above the individual, and you need a group with weight to move them. That is what a body like this is for.
Keep that altitude in mind, because it is also the limit.
The layer it cannot reach: you
A region has six months to map itself. A 48-year-old office worker does not have six months to be studied.
That is the honest tension in every program like this. The planning cycle for an institution is measured in quarters and reports. The clock on your job is measured in the next software update. By the time a regional plan is written, reviewed, and funded, the tool that changes your work has already shipped twice.
Committees are built to protect categories of workers. They are not built to sit with one person and answer the only question that keeps you up. What do I do, at my job, this month, so the work still needs me next year?
No coalition can answer that for you. The answer is personal. It depends on your exact role, your exact tasks, and the exact ways AI is already good enough to do parts of them. That is the layer under the region. It is where you live, and it is the one the Lab was never designed to reach.
What personal AI readiness actually looks like
Here is the part you can control this quarter.
Personal AI readiness is a set of skills, built in order. It starts with using the tools well enough to trust what they give you and catch what they get wrong. It grows into shaping the tools around your actual work, so they handle the parts of your job that are repeatable. It ends with you running small systems that do work while you sleep, and knowing when to step in.
That progression has levels. We map them as The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency, and the useful thing about levels is that they turn a scary change into a next step. You do not have to become an engineer. You have to take the next rung.
The move this week is small and yours alone. Pick one task you repeat every week. Spend twenty minutes teaching an AI tool to do the first draft of it. Just the first draft. That single rep does more for your job security than any regional plan, because it is the only kind of readiness that shows up in your actual work.
The number to watch
More than 15 million STARs hold jobs that AI can reshape. That figure is the reason the Lab exists, and it is the right reason.
But a number that big hides the one that counts. Inside those millions is a single desk, yours, where the change either finds you ready or finds you surprised. Regions get studied. People get replaced or promoted. The difference is usually who started building before the plan was finished.
Indiana is doing the region's part. Do your part. The two are not in competition. They just move on different clocks, and only one of them is set to yours.
A committee can protect a category of workers. Only you can make sure you are not the one it was too slow to reach.
You can see where you stand on The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency in about ten minutes. That is a fine place to start the personal layer, whatever your region decides to do.
Related reading: Level 2: The Ensign (Prompt Engineer).
Sources
- Opportunity@Work and Brookings Launch AI Readiness Lab (PR Newswire, July 23, 2026)
- How AI may reshape career pathways to better jobs (Brookings)
- Opportunity@Work
- Tear the Paper Ceiling campaign (Ad Council)
- CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the AI Readiness Lab?
It is a six-month program from Opportunity@Work and the Brookings Institution, launched in July 2026. It helps six regional economies map how AI is reshaping local career paths and build plans to protect and create good jobs, with a focus on workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs).
What does it mean for an individual worker?
A regional program can move training dollars, employer commitments, and policy. It cannot rebuild one person's specific role. Individual, or personal, AI readiness is the layer underneath it: learning to use AI well in your own job, then shaping it around the tasks you repeat. That part is on the worker, and it moves faster than any regional plan.
How do I know if I am personally ready for AI at work?
Start by measuring where you stand. The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency is one way to see your current skill level and the next step, and the assessment takes about ten minutes.
Find your AI Proficiency level
The free 7 Levels assessment places you across seven stages of AI capability. Under ten minutes. Research-backed scoring.