IBM Warns 40% of Workers Have to Reskill, As AI Profoundly Impacts the Global Workforce

If you have an office job, odds are you’re already using some AI tools and your workload looks different from last year’s. In the future, AI will accelerate workplace change even further, with IBM claiming as much as 40% of the global workforce will be forced to reskill in the next 3 years.

The company released a report based on two prior major surveys, one with 3,000 C-level execs across 28 countries, and the other involving 21,000 workers in 22 countries. 

Considering how transformative AI has been over the business landscape in the last couple of years, many workers will indeed have to invest in new skills, as generative AI is capable of producing similar results – and automation doesn’t need a paycheck.

C-level execs felt that generative AI technologies supplemented workers’ existing skillsets, augmenting workers, not replacing them.

From the report:

Workers at all levels could feel the effects of generative AI, but entry-level employees are expected to see the biggest shift. Seventy-seven percent of executive respondents say entry-level positions are already seeing the effects of generative AI and that will intensify in the next few years. Only 22% of respondents report the same for executive or senior management roles.

AI can open up more possibilities for employees by enhancing their capabilities. In fact, 87% of executives surveyed believe employees are more likely to be augmented than replaced by generative AI. That varies across functions — 97% of executives think employees in procurement are more likely to be augmented than replaced, compared to 93% for employees in risk and compliance, 93% for finance, 77% for customer service and 73% for marketing.

Also read: Microsoft Reveals Pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot, the AI Tools for Generating Decks and Spreadsheets

Meanwhile, most of Hollywood and the movie industry is on strike, demanding protections from AI being trained on their personal image or work. 

“They propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation,”  said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, when protests started earlier this summer.

Also read: Author Discovers AI-Generated Fake Books Published Under Her Name but Amazon Refused to Remove Them