Artificial Intelligence

“Jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop.” - Sam Altman. The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace will drastically change the way people work in the coming decade. Jobs will disappear. Artificial intelligence is on its way to replacing workers in jobs that require education but are made up of tasks that can be done by machines. Furthermore, its day-to-day use will free up the calendars of many workers to take on additional tasks. We're witnessing one of the biggest changes in labor posing new challenges and exciting opportunities.

It was a hype hard to miss, the rise of ChatGPT. Adored by students to do homework and embraced by employees to write emails. Since its launch, the web has been flooded with new content and experts on the topic. As a natural language processing tool, ChatGPT is one type of AI. There are three additional types of AI, including machine vision, expert systems, and speech recognition.  They share their ability, as machines, to simulate human intelligence processes. It's done by accumulating vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and rules, dissecting text, code, visuals, or speech, and forming new, authentic, and effective constructs difficult to distinguish from human work. The application of AI is noticeable in day-to-day activities ranging from communicating with Siri to ordering a self-driving car in San Francisco. While ChatGPT is relatively new, natural language processing is not. The same applies to AI, it's not new. A study by Pegasystems (2017) among consumers showed that 84% interacted with some type of AI while only 34% thought they did. The ChatGPT boom wasn't the start of AI but it has intensified efforts from organizations to adopt it in the workplace, especially AI capable of quickly generating new content. 

In its current state, AI is on the brink of replacing the first of many workers to come. Hence, it's easy to sympathize with a majority of employees that is pessimistic about AI. Based on a report by Boston Consulting Group (2023), 58% of frontline workers don't view AI positively. Their leaders are less pessimistic with 62% being positive about AI. Headlines about IBM cutting 3,900 jobs due to the disruption caused by AI don't help its image. Although the full integration of AI in our work is likely to create a whole lot more jobs, it's evident that plenty of jobs will disappear. AI predominantly affects office jobs such as back-office support and customer service roles. According to McKinsey & Company (2023), people holding these types of jobs are 10-14 times more likely to change occupations by the end of this decade than the highest earners. This is particularly worrying for minorities, including women, Blacks, and Hispanics who hold these roles more often than white men. McKinsey & Company (2023) estimates that a total of 1.1 million of these roles based in the US will cease to exist by 2030. Employees are given little time to adjust as organizations go all-in on AI. Without training and reskilling, millions of workers are about to be displaced. 

The major shift in the way people work because of AI is guaranteed to bring many new jobs. In fact, the number of new jobs trumps the number of lost jobs. In total, Goldman Sachs (2023) expects 300 million jobs to be affected by AI. The World Economic Forum (2020), estimates that 85 million jobs will be replaced by AI until 2025. In return, 97 million new jobs will be created. McKinsey & Company's study (2023) indicates that the majority of new jobs will be higher-earning jobs with 3.8 million US jobs in the highest wage quintile. Reports by Boston Consulting Group (2023) on training in AI appear to underline this by stating that 44% of people in leadership positions received such compared to just 14% of frontline workers. The labor market will experience a decreasing demand for basic cognitive and manual skills and an increasing demand for socio-emotional and digital skills. The result of organizations embracing AI is a growing job market that requires talent able to exercise more sophisticated skills.

Organizations adopting AI in their day-to-day know it's good for their bottom line. Because of AI, workers are more productive, and more work can be done with fewer people. A study by Github (2023) performed among software developers showed that those using AI to write code were 56% faster than their peers who didn't. Across the board, AI is expected to increase productivity by multiple percentage points (McKinsey & Company, 2023). To rearrange jobs and fill the jobs created by AI, employers will have to rely on more innovative approaches to acquiring and developing talent. Training higher-paid employees won't be enough. There are simply not enough of those employees to meet future demand. The labor market needs to become more inclusive and more focused on training lower-paid workers. In other words, organizations need to loosen their requirements around education and degrees and shift toward assessing skills, providing resources for potential talent to acquire in-demand skills. Only by broadening their talent pools and investing in skills training, organizations will succeed in maximizing their gains from AI. 

Employers and employees are facing a big challenge in reskilling. Organizations need to invest more and employees need to learn more as AI will augment many jobs in marketing (73%), customer service (77%), procurement (97%), risk and compliance (93%), and finance (93%) (IBM, 2023). According to a study by IBM (2023), 40% of employees will have to reskill due to AI. Worldwide that accounts for 1.4 billion people. While many employees are forced to reskill, all employees stand to benefit from acquiring skills that secure their (future) careers. Whereas skills in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM skills) used to dominate the skills paradigm in 2016, they're now dangling at the bottom. People skills have taken priority, closely followed by digital and technical skills. To attain and maintain an office job during and post the AI era, employees need to prioritize learning skills that are difficult to master by machines.

AI isn't new but its widespread adoption in the workplace ignited by ChatGPT is drastically changing jobs and the way people work. Changes in the workplace will result in low-paid office jobs disappearing while simultaneously creating many new high-paid jobs. Organizations carry a responsibility to train an AI-ready workforce, expanding their talent pools to become more inclusive and focused on skills and equipping employees with must-have skills. Meanwhile, any person does well to invest in acquiring soft and digital skills to maintain relevance and tap into new opportunities in the coming decade.