Study reveals 40% of employees need to acquire new skills within 3 years due to AI

IBM, a major technology company, reported that approximately 87 percent of executives expressed that job roles would be enhanced by generative AI rather than replaced.

New Delhi: About 40 per cent of workers will need to reskill due to artificial intelligence (AI) and automation over the next three years, which translates to 1.4 billion of the 3.4 billion people in the global workforce, a new study has shown.

According to tech major IBM, about 87 per cent of executives said that job roles to be augmented, rather than replaced, by generative AI.

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That figure is closer to three-quarters in marketing (73 per cent) and customer service (77 per cent) — and more than 90 per cent in procurement (97 per cent), risk and compliance (93 per cent), and finance (93 per cent).

More than three in four executives said entry-level positions are already being impacted, while only 22 per cent said the same for executive or senior management roles.

Only 28 per cent of CEOs have assessed the potential impact of generative AI on their current workforce.

“As AI continues to evolve, its effects will likely intensify across the board, including at the managerial and executive ranks. No level is immune to the impact. This will force executives to rethink job roles, skill sets, and how work gets done,” the study said.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), this evolution will disrupt 85 million jobs globally between 2020 and 2025 — and create 97 million new job roles.

It also predicted that 44 per cent of workers’ skills will be disrupted between 2023 and 2028 — up nine percentage points from its last five-year projection.

Moreover, the experts identified three key priorities that can help them elevate employees and gain a competitive edge — transform traditional processes, job roles, and organisational structures to boost productivity and enable new business and operating models, build human-machine partnerships that enhance value creation and employee engagement, and invest in technology that lets people focus on higher value tasks and drives revenue growth.