Adobe and LinkedIn have launched a global AI skills initiative aimed at helping marketing professionals adapt to the next phase of AI-driven work. The joint programme, AI Essentials for Marketers, is designed to give practitioners practical, role-specific training across digital marketing, content and creative, social and communications, and data and analytics.
The initiative arrives as marketing teams face mounting pressure to build AI fluency quickly, particularly as agentic AI reshapes how campaigns are planned, produced and optimised. Adobe and LinkedIn said the courses are built for people at any stage of their careers and are delivered in short-form, social-first formats intended to fit around demanding workloads.
The content is grounded in labour-market data from LinkedIn’s Economic Graph, which shows AI skills have become the top area of focus for marketing professionals and that job postings requiring AI literacy have more than doubled year-on-year, rising 113%.
The companies said the programme will help bridge the gap between awareness of AI and day-to-day practical use. The courses will cover AI-powered content planning, content creation, audience targeting and the use of data in agentic workflows, reflecting the skills marketers are increasingly expected to bring into their roles. They will be offered in 47 languages and made available free of charge on LinkedIn Learning, with additional hands-on learning materials hosted on Adobe Experience League.
Adobe said the initiative builds on its broader commitment to skills development through Adobe Digital Academy and Experience League, both of which have been designed to expand access to digital, creative and AI literacy. The company noted that 99% of Fortune 100 companies use AI in an Adobe application, underscoring its view that marketing transformation is already well under way across large enterprises.
For LinkedIn, the partnership extends its role as a learning and career platform at a time when professionals are trying to understand how AI will affect both current responsibilities and future progression. The company said the programme is intended to make AI skills accessible to every marketer, not just technical specialists, through scalable and practical learning.
“Marketers everywhere are eager to embrace AI but need the right skills to do it with confidence,” said Rachel Thornton, chief marketing officer, enterprise at Adobe.
She said the initiative is about more than learning new tools, and is instead focused on reimagining creativity, marketing strategy and customer relationships in an AI-powered era.
Jessica Jensen, chief marketing officer at LinkedIn, said marketers are navigating a shift that is “both daunting and exciting”, adding that the partnership is designed to provide accessible, practical learning for modern work.
The programme is also structured around validation and portability of skills, with certificates of completion that can be displayed on LinkedIn profiles. That feature may prove especially valuable for professionals seeking to signal AI capability in an increasingly competitive market, where demonstrable skills are becoming as important as formal credentials.
