Potential Scenarios: Three Possible Scenarios for the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Workforce

“Generative artificial intelligence may well be the most significant transformation in labor since the agricultural and industrial revolutions.”

Well, don’t be too anxious yet. That statement from Accenture’s latest 2024 Workforce Report may be a bit of an exaggeration, but in fact, we’ve been hearing similar claims that the workforce will be the same since the information revolution began in the early 1980s. Great changes have taken place. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly significantly change and assist the way work is performed and delivered, and is seen as the latest stage in the ongoing information revolution.

Artificial intelligence will have a significant impact on our current way of working. This is a problem we need to face. Like other technologies, AI is considered a tool that is forced upon workers.

However, generative artificial intelligence is completely different. According to an Accenture survey, nearly all employees (95%) believe there is value in working with AI technology.

However, employees are not trusting in their organization’s upcoming approach to artificial intelligence. For example, 60% of employees are worried about unemployment, stress and burnout related to artificial intelligence technology.

In contrast, less than a third of executives (29%) believe their employees will worry about job loss. The report's authors, Ellyn Shook and Paul Daugherty, note that while businesses want to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence, there is a certain disconnect between employees and leadership.

Executives and employees alike need to prepare for the broader impact of artificial intelligence in the near future. The ultimate impact of artificial intelligence on jobs remains unknown. According to the results of a survey, all business leaders surveyed (100%) expect changes to their workforce, such as increasing or decreasing the number of employees, and they plan to implement reskilling programs. Therefore, in order to adapt to the arrival of artificial intelligence, executives and employees need to proactively prepare to adapt to this change and improve their skill levels.

Things are moving fast, perhaps too fast for business leaders. According to Shook and Daugherty, “Generative AI captured the world’s attention in just a few hours. The rapid adoption of generative AI by businesses and individuals highlights its potential to reshape work, transform the workforce, and prepare humanity to Future capabilities that unfold in real time."

Shook and Daugherty pointed out that current artificial intelligence technology can handle relatively narrow tasks and roles, and the next development focus will focus on "reshaping the entire organization's processes, and improve employees’ work experience.” However, research shows that two-thirds of executives admit that they do not yet have the right skills and capabilities to undertake this reinvention.

Additionally, executives don’t believe their employees are ready for AI, with 36% of executives surveyed believing employees won’t fully embrace generative technology due to a lack of understanding of the technology. AI. However, the majority of employees (82%) believe they have mastered the technology, and 94% believe they can develop the required skills.

Additionally, more than half (53%) of employees are concerned about the quality of output from generative AI, while only 21% of executive leaders believe output quality is a concern for their employees .

The development of artificial intelligence needs to be a collaborative, user-guided, and human-guided process. Companies surveyed that are successfully pioneering the use of generative AI (9% of the sample) are “breaking down barriers and building trust among employees by actively engaging them in the redesign of jobs and roles.” Additionally, these human-centered leaders—powered by artificial intelligence—could create $10.3 trillion in global economic value.

Accenture’s insights above are based on economic modeling of AI-related data and surveys of more than 7,000 C-level executives and more than 5,000 employees of large enterprises.

The people-centered approach has yet to penetrate the corporate level. 95% of employees are ready and willing to embrace generative AI, while only 5% of enterprises are providing training at scale. Shook and Daugherty urge a focus on "improving people's proficiency and comfort levels with AI technology."

There are currently three possible scenarios that will determine the ultimate impact of artificial intelligence on jobs in the second half of the 2020s.

Active Adoption Scenario: Organizations focus on “cutting costs entirely through generative AI, adopting the technology quickly (full adoption within five years), and delivering it at a high cost” Speed ​​displaces talent. Displaced talent will move to similarly replaceable positions that are similar to the ones they originally held, causing unemployment to rise."

Careful Adoption Scenario: Organizations focus on “automating and augmenting work with generative AI, adopting the technology slowly and carefully (with full adoption over the next 15 years), to avoid brain drain but no longer focus on creating a people-centred approach and organization”.

Human-Centered Adoption Scenario: Organizations focus on “leveraging generative AI to enhance work capabilities while effectively leveraging automation use cases, adopting the technology at a moderate pace (full adoption within 10 years), talent Attrition rates will ultimately be low due to extensive efforts to create human-centered approaches and organizations designed to support existing employees whose jobs are changing and new employees who will be eliminated by automation and forced to transition into new roles." .

More than half of forward-thinking leaders surveyed who held a human-centered view are taking action to reinvent their workforce by redesigning jobs and roles around generative AI. Three-quarters of businesses are engaging their employees in shaping this new way of working.

Accenture predicts that these leading companies are more likely to invest in improving the soft and technical skills of their employees, twice as likely as other companies, and these companies expect to increase workforce productivity by 20% or more in the next three years. It's also twice as likely as other businesses.

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