Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to software-based systems that use data inputs to make decisions on their own. For decades, AI was the domain of universities and corporate R&D labs. However, recent progress in machine learning (ML) on the back of improved algorithms (e.g., Google’s AlphaGo, OpenAI’s GPT-3) and increasing computing power has enabled AI to solve real-life problems.
The ongoing development of AI will shape the future of work
AI will drive the next industrial revolution and shape the future of work across sectors. It will also nurture fears about the obsolescence of individual jobs and even entire industries. In the face of these fears, we can learn from past technological advancements. While disruption of the world of work is inevitable, mass unemployment is not a foregone conclusion. Instead, new industries, new jobs, and especially new ways of working are on the horizon.
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Among the breadth of AI developments, the capabilities of generative AI and agentic AI will be the driving force behind the most significant changes in the labour market. Generative AI’s creative abilities and agentic AI’s autonomous operations will transform the nature of work across multiple sectors. While there will be a period of job disruption and displacement, especially for white-collar roles, this will likely be followed by improved productivity, the creation of new job categories, a transformation of individual tasks, and ultimately a change to business operations.
However, this latest technological experiment’s success relies on multiple complex factors: a strategic reskilling of workers, the development of AI that augments inherently human abilities, an update to labour laws and ethical parameters for AI, and the equitable distribution of AI capabilities and their benefits globally.
There are already promising use cases of AI in workplaces across industries
Since the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022, AI has been the most-talked-about technology in both boardrooms and public discourse. Despite allegations of overhype, AI is already demonstrating tangible use cases across industries, improving productivity and changing current working methods. For example, the creative capabilities of generative AI are already being used in product design, customer support, information summarisation, clerical support, report drafting, copywriting, and more.
The opportunities for AI are greatest in industries with the most knowledge workers
Previous industrial revolutions rolled out mass production, assembly lines, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and other increasingly advanced technologies that profoundly disrupted blue-collar work via automation. The AI boom is automating cognitive and creative labour and thus posing a direct challenge to white-collar and knowledge workers. This will have similar societal and economic impacts as previous industrial and technological revolutions, significantly impacting the future of work.
Agentic AI will have the greatest impact on jobs in the long term
Agentic AI is the next phase in AI development. It will result in the widespread use of AI agents capable of acting autonomously, making decisions, and taking actions with limited or no human supervision. These AI agents can interact with large language models (LLMs) and the external environment and thus execute more general-purpose work.
As agentic AI continues to develop, it will be able to work for various consumers, enterprises, scientific, and industrial purposes and in highly complex environments, such as industrial plants or hospitals. This will fundamentally transform many industries and improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience with intelligent automation.
