Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated the business agenda since the ChatGPT chatbot burst onto the scene in late 2022. Generative AI is estimated to eventually automate millions of jobs, but its employment benefits are harder to quantify.

Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has come to dominate the enterprise agenda.

Productivity increases of a few percentage points are offset by labor market disruptions, as Goldman Sachs estimates that generative AI will eventually automate 300 million of today’s jobs.

The employment benefits of generative AI are harder to quantify, but the Future of Jobs report’s cohort of 800 global business leaders is well placed to shed light on the future.

Here are three ways AI will change the future of work:

1. AI will boost job creation

Companies that responded to our survey expect artificial intelligence to be a net job creator in the next five years. Nearly half (49%) of companies expect AI adoption to create jobs, far ahead of the 23% of respondents who expect it to displace jobs.

The number of AI-related positions such as data scientists, big data specialists and business intelligence analysts is expected to increase by 30% to 35%, with growth close to 45% in companies operating in China .

Job growth is expected to be greatest in the automotive and aerospace industry, where 73% of companies expect job increases. Closely followed by the research, design and business management services, information and technology services and electronics sectors.

Although the outlook is sometimes mixed, only four of the 27 sectors studied foresee net job losses. Workers in the oil and gas industry may be the most vulnerable, with 45% of companies predicting losses, 35% predicting job creation, and 20% predicting no effect on employment.

The real estate, media, entertainment and sports, and consumer goods production sectors are the only ones that foresee negative prospects regarding the impact of AI on employment.

The trickier question is who will benefit and who will take the most risks. A Chinese study of the country’s manufacturing sector showed that artificial intelligence reduced the demand for low-skilled labor in all regions and increased the demand for high-skilled labor in the east of the country.

But the landscape may be changing as AI masters increasingly complex tasks. In April, US researchers found that the highest-paid and most highly trained professions are among the most exposed to generative AI.

2. Companies will prioritize AI skills

AI and big data are the top skills priority for companies with more than 50,000 employees. Outpacing 25 other skill sets that span the full range of hard and soft skills needed in the workplace, the ability to drive business performance through artificial intelligence is the primary focus of skills training investment for large companies responded to this year’s Future of Jobs survey.

Across the entire data sample, which covers small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large multinationals, AI and big data are only behind analytical and creative thinking in skills strategies for the period 2023 to 2027.

This is especially surprising since the senior executives who responded to the survey only ranked this group of competencies 16th in importance to workers today. Exploiting artificial intelligence is a skill of the future.

“Cooperation between the public and private sectors on training will be key to ensuring that everyone is carried along by the wave of increased productivity.”

Initiatives like TeachAI, a collaboration between the World Economic Forum, Code.org and leading AI leaders and experts, aim to integrate AI and computing skills into education to ensure the next generation of talent is future-ready. from work.

Similarly, the Education 4.0 Alliance aims to bring to light promising examples of public-private collaboration that leverage new technologies to develop future-ready skills. At the same time, UNESCO provides intellectual leadership on the need for AI competencies in technical and vocational education and training.

According to the latest data, 56% of boys and girls aged 8 to 12 in 29 countries are victims of at least one of the world’s main cyber risks: cyberbullying, video game addiction, online sexual behavior or meeting strangers known through the Internet.

Using the Forum’s platform to promote its global action, #DQEveryChild, which is an initiative aimed at increasing the digital IQ (DIC) of children aged 8 to 12, has reduced exposure to cyber risks by fifteen %.

In March 2019, the 2019 CID Global Standards Report was published, the first attempt to define a global standard for digital literacy, skills and readiness in the education and technology sectors.

Our systemic initiative to shape the future of media, information and entertainment has brought together key stakeholders to ensure greater digital intelligence in children around the world. You can find more information about digital citizenship in our impact story.

3. AI will augment tasks, not automate them

Despite technological advances, this year’s Future of Jobs report suggests that companies are increasingly skeptical about the potential of artificial intelligence to fully automate work tasks. Executives estimate that 34% of tasks are already automated, just one percentage point ahead of the figure indicated in the 2020 Future of Jobs Report.

Future automation expectations are also being revised downwards as markets approach the man-machine frontier more slowly than anticipated. Respondents to this year’s survey expect an additional 9% of operational tasks to be automated over the next five years, down five percentage points from 2020 expectations.

The difference lies in the growing consensus that artificial intelligence will augment human performance rather than supplant it entirely. For example, a survey of AI experts published in June last year showed that AI is likely to augment rather than automate most management capabilities.

Only information gathering and simple decision making are likely to be fully automated, and leadership and imagination capabilities will be largely unaffected by AI.

Impact of generative AI on the future of work?

The next edition of the Jobs of Tomorrow report, in collaboration with Accenture, will shed more light on the jobs that will see the greatest impact from generative AI, whether through automation, augmentation, or both.

Around 75% of companies will have adopted AI technologies by 2027. Meanwhile, 80% plan to accelerate automation during this period.

But the Future of Jobs Report 2023 suggests that humans will not be left behind by the AI revolution: an even larger fraction plan to invest in on-the-job learning and training. After all, artificial intelligence skills are at the heart of the reskilling revolution.

*The author is Education, Skills and Learning Leader at the World Economic Forum. This text was originally published on the WEF site and is used under the organization’s licensing and republication principles.