With each passing day, it’s becoming clear that AI is going to have a much bigger impact on the world than people imagine. For every person who believes that it’s a bubble that will eventually burst, there are a hundred others investing heavily into what they believe is the future.
Today, the reality of AI’s impact on the lives of employees cannot be denied. According to research conducted by the OECD, four in five workers state that AI has helped them improve performance in their jobs. That said, three in five of these workers are also worried about losing those jobs to AI within the next ten years.
There can be no doubt that it’s changing the workplace and also the way employers and leaders are hiring around the world. In this article, we’ll find out what these changes look like and try to learn a few insights from these changing times.
AI Is Reshaping Skill Demand Much Faster Than Companies Expected
It was only a few years ago that AI was simply an interesting and funny tool to show your parents and friends. However, no one expected what felt like a novelty to suddenly influence serious aspects of life. Today, people can no longer play ostrich and pretend that AI doesn’t exist.
According to the International Labor Organization, one in four jobs is already exposed to generative AI. In total, 3.3% of current global employment falls into the highest exposure category. Interestingly, women in high-income countries are working significantly more with AI than men (9.6% vs. 3.5%).
What this increased exposure to AI is creating is a change in job requirements. Now, employers are looking for baseline AI literacy, and if talent can’t be found locally, employers are opening their search beyond domestic borders. After all, multi-country payroll systems make this incredibly easy today.
As Remote, a global HR and payroll platform, explains, these are services that give you centralized control over employees in different countries. Thus, we are looking at a world where companies will gladly hire from anywhere just to meet the skill requirements that an increasingly AI-focused world requires.
The Role Leadership Ends up Playing in AI
Given how transformative AI is, it’s a little curious that integration and usage haven’t been more rapid. Yes, there’s increased focus on tech, but most companies are still in the experimenting stage. They’re still not a hundred percent sure if it would work or make a big enough difference in their context.
As one report from McKinsey & Company explains, 92% of companies today are planning to increase their AI investment. However, only 1% of their leaders admit that their firms are mature in terms of AI driving business outcomes and being fully integrated in workflow. The report also highlights that the biggest barrier to scaling is leaders who aren’t adapting fast enough.
The play-it-safe mindset we see here is understandable. What the world is experiencing is a generational advancement, and as such, many leaders are having a deer-in-the-headlights experience. If they go all-in and overlook some hidden, yet critical factors, it could mean the end of the company. At the same time, if they fail to seize the moment, their risk-tolerant competitors gain the advantage.
Arguably, one big reason for this hesitation is confusion about how to really calculate return on AI investment. After all, what does success look like with AI? Are the KPI improvements really that much different compared to a highly motivated employee? Similarly, leaders are on the fence about how much they can trust AI.
If something goes wrong, leadership is the ones who have to take responsibility and answer to shareholders. It is common knowledge that AI tends to hallucinate information. What happens if a worker uses AI to crunch data and the numbers get fudged along the way? In some industries, the implications could be disastrous.
AI Is Creating New Flavors of Worker Burnout
This is another aspect that many companies are missing, despite it being extremely obvious. Remote points out that AI has offered us tools to help draft emails, analyze data, and more in seconds. However, they highlight a survey from Upwork, which found that 77% of workers felt like AI ended up increasing their workload.
Likewise, one CNBC report supporting AI in fighting burnout also acknowledges data that indicates 45% of U.S. workers using AI likely suffer from high burnout. This figure came from a report by Quantum Workplace, which used insights from over 700,000 people across 8,000 organizations.
It’s ironic and a little disappointing, if we’re being honest. The amount of human oversight needed with the current quality of AI tools means that workers feel even more stretched thin. What’s the point of having AI draft an email if a human has to go over it, line by line, to make it sound human?
It also doesn’t help that AI keeps getting updated, which sounds great at the surface level. However, it means that employees are then expected to know how to make use of new features, which is another burden on their shoulders.
The best way to resolve these issues is to recognize the role that leadership has to play. After all, it’s not the average office worker who gets to make decisions about AI usage, which is why how leadership handles AI implementation is critical.
Ultimately, the claims of AI being a Pandora’s box are very much true. There’s no going back to a pre-AI world now, so the best-case scenario is smart and effective utilization. If you’re a decision maker who has a voice in how AI gets to be used, perhaps consider the points we’ve discussed above.
Until AI can take care of AI, humans are always going to be in the picture. Thus, it’s critical that any push for AI usage is made by verifying if it would truly improve outcomes in the given scenario. After all, any promise of AI being an efficiency bringer gets thrown out the window when you need a human babysitting it for it to work properly.
I’m Erika Balla, a Hungarian from Romania with a passion for both graphic design and content writing. After completing my studies in graphic design, I discovered my second passion in content writing, particularly in crafting well-researched, technical articles. I find joy in dedicating hours to reading magazines and collecting materials that fuel the creation of my articles. What sets me apart is my love for precision and aesthetics. I strive to deliver high-quality content that not only educates but also engages readers with its visual appeal.
