Pearson and Amazon Web Services research finds employers are struggling to hire graduates with the right AI skillset, even as education leaders believe they are meeting expectations. The survey reported that 53% of employers identified AI skills as their main hiring challenge, while only 28% said universities are keeping pace with AI-driven change. The report also surfaced compliance and proficiency gaps: only 14% of current graduates reported high professional proficiency using AI tools, and many students said they frequently use AI academically while lacking confidence that their use complies with institutional policies. In response, the research recommends a structured “AI readiness friction framework” to bridge the education-to-work pipeline by linking curriculum to applied workplace capability and by addressing barriers to translation from classroom AI literacy into professional execution.