Verizon to invest $70 mn cumulatively in nationwide AI skilling initiative with IBM, Google, OpenAI and others

US telecom operator Verizon said on Wednesday it is investing $70 million cumulatively in a nationwide initiative to provide jobseekers, displaced workers and small businesses with AI skills. Verizon last year committed $20 million through its Reskilling and Career Transition Fund to help departing employees gain AI skills after announcing plans to cut 13,000 jobs; the new initiative adds another $50 million. It is partnering with IBM, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Coursera and OpenAI to deliver AI training. Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said companies and the public sector have a responsibility to invest in people with the same urgency they invest in technology.

This is a large corporate effort, joined by several AI and online education companies, to scale AI skills training as a labor transition measure, directly shaping how adult reskilling is delivered and how AI talent supply is structured. For AI education product teams, an expanded corporate-funded free training channel could change acquisition and competition for adult learners; for schools and teachers, it offers a reference for linking industry-side training with public education. The original report does not disclose curriculum content, participant numbers, timelines or outcome data, so actual reach and results still need verification. Adult AI skills training gains an additional corporate-funded free channel, potentially changing acquisition conditions for online education platforms and AI training products. Layoffs and reskilling investment advance together, making the link between corporate AI training and public employment and education systems an observable case.