According to a new estimate, artificial intelligence will significantly alter the nature of employment but not completely replace most workers.
As per Boston Consulting Group experts, artificial intelligence will “reshape” between 50% and 55% of occupations in the United States during the next three years.
Even if the roles exist, what people perform in them will differ, according to BCG managing director and senior partner Matthew Kropp.
Numerous employment will be eliminated concurrently. Over the next five years, BCG predicts that AI will replace 10% to 15% of American occupations.
There is almost a reflexive response: layoffs and job cuts. It’s indiscriminate, which is bad for businesses as well as society since we need people to have jobs, he said. Yes, some jobs will disappear, but you’ll need to put in effort to retrain employees and change the way they operate.
Better for business and society
Kropp therefore advises company executives to concentrate on how AI may enhance rather than replace employees’ skills. Kropp continued, “We should concentrate on re-skilling and ensuring that those who are doing it are migrating to other industries where jobs will be good.
Boston Consulting Group analyzed tasks related to 1,500 jobs using government labor data to determine which jobs are best suited for AI replacement or augmentation.
In certain situations, this will lead to a decrease in the cost of employment and an increase in demand for jobs, according to Kropp. The best example of this is software engineering. Businesses have a huge backlog of software engineering projects. A significant amount of software is not developed because it is too costly.
On the other hand, it is anticipated that many call center positions would be destroyed because AI can perform the tasks without raising demand for their services.
The number of interactions does not increase proportionately when AI lowers the cost of answering standard questions. According to BCG’s analysis, productivity improvements are more likely to lower the number of representatives needed in this situation.
AI-proof work?
Jobs won’t alter much in other situations. According to Kropp, jobs requiring interpersonal skills or a physical presence, like plumbers or therapists, are unlikely to be significantly impacted by AI.
Economists anticipate that AI will create new types of occupations, similar to earlier cycles of technical progress, although Kropp stated that it is still unknown what those jobs would involve. “Did anyone ever think that being a social media influencer would be a job when social media came out?” he said.
