Grow your business: Jobs being replaced by AI
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For centuries, jobs have evolved and devolved. From the Industrial Revolution to the age of computerization, artificial intelligence (AI) is now in the forefront of job replacement. In a recent study of five million job listings by Bloomberry, a labor trend publication, several job types will be replaced sooner than others.
While artificial intelligence is not science fiction anymore, it has already started to make inroads within several industries including healthcare, automotive, home building, and customer service. A recent report by the accounting firm PwC indicated AI will represent about $15.7 trillion of the global economy by 2030. That is less than six years away.
In light of those statistics it is estimated that for every one job that is eliminated, almost two will be created in the field of automation. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, while the goal of most robotic and artificial intelligence firms is to replace work that is traditionally done by humans, the need to service, support, and continue to develop new applications will create an increase in demand for employees in all of the areas of automation; just like it did for the burgeoning “computer technology” industry of the 1960s. McKinsey has dubbed this transition as ‘reskilling’ the labor force. Another term, that of ‘upskilling’ is also being used when addressing the phenomenon.
Since generative AI has gone mainstream; the likes of ChatGPT, Google Bard, Microsoft Copilot, or Perplexity seem to dominate the market and beg the question most often asked by people, namely, determining what jobs will AI be replacing as it evolves. Many studies emphasize performance improvement instead of job replacement or elimination. While certainly many, if not most, jobs of today can be improved as a result of using AI, the Bloomberry study is more specific in addressing job replacement.
In the study, researcher Henley Wing Chou took the 12 most popular job categories from the job board Upwork. Those categories included web design, graphic design, front-end development, writing, social media marketing, video editing/production, customer service, accounting, translation, sales, back-end development, and market research. Then he looked at the specific number of days from the release of ChatGPT to determine if jobs were positively or negatively impacted by AI.
In typical good news/bad news fashion, the bad news indicated the three areas most negatively impacted by AI were: writing, translation, and customer service jobs. As reported in the study, “The number of writing jobs declined 33%, translation jobs declined 19%, and customer service jobs declined 16%.” The study went on to say, “If there’s going to be any impact on certain jobs, we’ll probably see it first in the freelance market because large companies will be much slower in adopting AI tools.” Recent history has shown AI is being used in basic writing, as well as, customer service applications.
The good news, however, was that “most of the other job categories were not negatively impacted—in fact, the number of jobs actually went up.” Chiu provided more good news, saying “Video editing/production jobs are up 39%, graphic design jobs are up 8%, and web design jobs are up 10%. Software development jobs are also up, with backend development jobs up 6% and front end/web development jobs up 4%.” Interestingly enough, any demand for a job relating to AI, including the generation of AI content, integrating AI application program interfaces, or developing AI agents, were all significantly high.
As recently as mid-March of 2024, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership published the results from their survey of close to two hundred replies that related to the use of AI in their business. Fifty-five percent of the respondees shared they have implemented at least one form of AI. It is certainly an indicator that some form of transition has begun. The responses from the survey indicated that three areas of a business likely to use AI were manufacturing, sales/marketing, and product/service development.
Finally, while there is fear in the employment market regarding what jobs will be eliminated, (un)Common Logic, performed a study using Bureau of Labor Statistics data that indicated the following jobs would have the highest risk of being replaced by AI; budget analysts, loan officers, accountants, insurance sales agents, and paralegals.
Clearly, many job categories are in transition. Some will transition to AI completely. Others will transition more slowly. Either way, as a business owner/manager, you should plan on utilizing AI where it is the most profitable for your operation and look to reskill or upskill your staff in order to take advantage of the efficiencies AI can provide in order to grow your business.