How is Generative AI Transforming Your Job and the Workplace?
In this first of two posts, we consider the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) on the workplace, with particular emphasis on jobs. In a follow-up post in this series, we’ll take a closer look at how HR is leveraging GAI broadly within the function, as well as specifically within the learning and development arena – a subject that is near and dear to our hearts at JLPA.
What is GAI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around since the middle of the 20th century, the term first being coined in 1956. It refers to technology that can perform specific tasks, such as answering basic questions (E.g., chatbots or virtual assistants). AI can also perform more sophisticated functions, such as recommending content based on behavior and choices, image recognition and video editing, as well as autonomous driving for vehicles.
GAI refers to a narrower scope of AI, one that focuses on generating content that is equal to and, in some cases, capable of exceeding human capabilities in specific creative and research tasks.
GAI’s power is in its ability to learn continuously and to generate new information faster than humans can.
““Generative” refers to the fact that these tools can identify patterns across enormous sets of data and generate new content—an ability that has often been considered uniquely human. Their most striking advance is in natural language capabilities, which are required for a large number of work activities. While ChatGPT is focused on text, other AI systems from major platforms can generate images, video, and audio.”
The Future of Jobs in a GAI World
While COVID-19 caused rapid and significant structural changes in the labor market, the pace is set to accelerate, according to experts, as new technologies such as GAI upend the way we work and live.
Fast Facts on Generative AI’s Impact on Jobs
55% of LinkedIn members hold jobs that stand to be disrupted or augmented by AI, and the skill sets required for our jobs will change by up to 65% by 2030. (LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Research Institute.)
4 in 5 executives say generative AI will change employee roles and skills. While workers at all levels will feel the effects of generative AI, lower-level employees are expected to see the biggest shift. (IBM Institute for Business Value study.)
90% of employees believe generative AI will help them work faster, integrate information from different sources in less time, and reduce time spent on difficult, boring, or tedious work. Nearly as many say generative AI will help them do more work (89%) and create better quality work (88%)—and 9 out of 10 business leaders surveyed say the same. (MIT/Adobe.)
“Every role in every enterprise has the potential to be reinvented, as humans working with AI co-pilots becomes the norm, dramatically amplifying what people can achieve. Generative AI will impact tasks, not occupations.”
Which Occupations Will Be Most Impacted by GAI?
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report, employers expect a structural labor market churn of 23% of jobs in the next five years. This is caused by the net effect of emerging jobs added and declining jobs eliminated. GAI is expected to be adopted by nearly 75% of surveyed companies: 50% of organizations expect it to create job growth, and 25% expect it to create job losses.
Several studies have approached this question from the perspective of tasks, activities, or skills performed within an occupation. These research-based approaches are perhaps the most informative.
In its report: Which U.S. Workers Are More Exposed to AI on Their Jobs? The Pew Research Center rated occupations as having low, medium, or high exposure to AI using a set of 41 job-related work activities common to all (see pages 43-45 of the report’s appendix for 20 occupations listed under each exposure level).
How much an occupation is exposed to GAI depends on how important these work activities are within each job. 52% of workers in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector face a high degree of exposure to GAI, while 48% of those in services such as repair, maintenance, and personal and household services are likely to experience little exposure to GAI.
The World Economic Forum’s “Jobs of Tomorrow” report examined the tasks performed. Researchers analyzed 19,000 individual tasks across 867 occupations, assessing their potential exposure. They assigned occupations into the three groups shown in the left column in the following table. The types of tasks and a sample of jobs in each category are shown in the table below.
The World Economic Forum’s “Jobs of Tomorrow” report also identifies:
New roles that are likely to be created, such as AI Developers, Interface and Interaction Designers, AI Content Creators, Data Curators, and AI Ethics and Governance Specialists.
Industries with the highest estimates of potential exposure (E.g., financial services, information technology and digital communications, media, entertainment, and sports.)
Functions within occupational groups are analyzed and ranked by exposure (E.g., HR, Finance, Marketing, etc.)
In their just-released Future of Work Report: AI At Work, LinkedIn identified Professional Services, Finance, and Manufacturing as those with the greatest demand for talent with AI skills and AI-literacy across the seven countries they studied.
GAI’s Effect on Worker Skills By Industry
LinkedIn also assessed the effect on skills by industry, breaking out exposure according to three categories – Augmented, Disrupted, and Insulated.
(See page 17 of the report: GAI’s expected effect on LinkedIn members’ skills by industry, globally).
“As jobs change with the incorporation of AI and become a collection of skills and tasks, workers will be more productive and spend less time on repetitive tasks, making unique people skills like leadership and creativity even more valuable.”
Employers Emphasize AI Learning and Training
High exposure to AI does not necessarily translate into high risk, however. GAI and automation tend to impact tasks rather than entire jobs at the professional level, meaning that there’s a real opportunity to reinvent roles and bring about improved productivity and job satisfaction.
Most experts and professionals themselves agree that GAI is set to enhance and enable work and productivity rather than replace jobs. Where jobs will be lost, the impact of GAI is likely to occur over time, allowing workers to move into different lines of work and/or upskill, just as they have always done when technology has impacted or eliminated their jobs. Consider how robots and automation transformed manufacturing operations in the second half of the twentieth century and the new jobs these technologies created.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023, while generative AI has the potential to displace jobs, it is the number three priority in company training strategies from now until 2027 and the number one priority for companies with more than 50,000 employees, suggesting a focus on training to exploit AI and opportunities for new or enhanced roles.
The driver for change can be summed up by IBM’s characterization of companies at the forefront of GAI adoption:
“GAI Leaders, with their heavier investments in automation to accelerate performance with AI-powered intelligent workflows, report outperforming their competitors in workforce agility (by 36% more), profitability and efficiency (24% more), innovation (53% more), and revenue growth (17% more).”
And what’s to come? The language and image recognition capabilities of AI systems have developed very rapidly in the last decade. Looking ahead, some experts predict that technology will evolve into “transformative AI” that can match the capabilities of the human brain by 2040.
Reading & References
Research
Butner, Karen, et al. “Seizing the AI and Automation Opportunity: The Moment Is Now.” IBM Institute for Business Value.
Daugherty, Paul, et al. Gen AI LLM - A New Era of Generative AI for Everyone - Accenture, 2023.
Di Battista, Attilio, et al. Future of Jobs Report 2023, World Economic Forum, May 2023.
Di Battista, Attilio, et al. “Jobs of Tomorrow: Large Language Models and Jobs.” White Paper, World Economic Forum & Accenture, Sept. 2023.
Ellingrud, Kweilin, et al. “Generative AI and the Future of Work in America.” McKinsey & Company, McKinsey & Company, 26 July 2023.
Kimbrough, Karin, et al. Future of Work Report - LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Institute, LinkedIn, Nov. 2023.
Kochhar, Rakesh. “Which U.S. Workers Are More Exposed to AI on Their Jobs?” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 26 July 2023.
Articles
Swineford, Randy. “Generative AI Is Empowering the Digital Workforce.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 17 Nov. 2023.