“AI will not replace you, but someone who uses AI will.”
Like a cautionary sign stuck on hazardous substances, the above line has been floating around for quite some time now. Economists and tech leaders have been ringing the death knell for a while cautioning about AI, which is looked upon as a potential reason for an impending apocalypse in the job market. With predictive stats on how certain jobs would be gone in an ‘xyz’ timeframe, a reality check would keep anxieties in check. So what’s the brouhaha all about? Has AI, or someone using AI replaced you?
Executive outplacement and career consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, attributed 4000 job losses in May to artificial intelligence, making it the first time for the company to mention AI as a cause of job loss.
Even though there have been massive layoffs owing to recession, including at big tech companies such as Microsoft, Meta, and others in the past six months, none of them have pointed to AI as a cause of it. However, observing the trend at those same companies on how each of them is adopting generative AI in their workflow, it is not difficult to connect the dots. But, having said that, the trends in the job market are reflecting another picture.
Generative AI Fuels Job Market
With massive adoption of generative AI in enterprises, which is either fuelled by anxiety or enthusiasm, AI has indeed kick-started a job evolution in the market. As per AIM Research, the generative AI job market has witnessed a steady growth from January to June of this year. Generative AI-related job postings in the United States are said to have risen by 20% in May. From 3000 job openings in April, the job counts have risen to 4500 jobs in June. The IT sector has observed the highest number of job positions for generative AI roles.
The figures may be indicative of jobs not seeing a decline, but job roles have been modified to suit the current wave. For instance, the role of a ‘generative AI engineer’, a role that never existed before, will require skills of engineers equipped in different fields. Therefore, the role of a generative AI engineer will encapsulate the roles of a deep learning engineer, ML, NL and also a software engineer.
New roles that probably didn’t exist earlier are also sprouting in full vigour. The role of prompt engineers — a result of the chatbot revolution — has witnessed an uptick with companies increasingly seeking such roles. With the role offering salaries higher than Python developers, the job market is only looking positive. The massive shift brought by AI has also sparked a debate on how an entire generation will study for jobs that won’t exist. It might not be an overstatement to say that certain job roles may become redundant, but it is mostly because the nature of the job role is seeing a change.
Together We Grow
Enterprises are approaching the generative AI rage in a coalition of sorts — not via replacements, but through implementation and training of their employees to tame the system. TCS, which initially partnered with Google Cloud for their generative AI services, recently partnered with Microsoft Azure to train 25000 engineers on Azure OpenAI.
In addition to implementing and training, enterprises are also building ways to support other companies thrive on generative AI. Tech Mahindra, which partnered with Microsoft to enable generative AI-powered enterprise search, unveiled their Generative AI Studio to help other enterprises kickstart their efforts in generative AI. Other IT companies have also followed suit.
AI Over Humans?
While most companies have found ways to work around the generative AI job buzz, there have also been companies that have openly embraced AI over human resources. Dukaan, a platform for enabling merchants to set up their e-commerce business, recently laid off 90% of their support staff replacing them with their new AI chatbot. The company claims to have saved cost and reduced customer resolution time since the move. Telecom company British Telecommunications said that over 55,000 jobs will be cut by the end of the decade, out of which a fifth will be in customer service where AI will replace staff.
There are also industries that have no choice but to embrace generative AI — travel industry being one of them. The industry that faced the biggest impact owing to the pandemic, is now slowly breathing and they all have integrated AI chatbots, ChatGPT plugins and other features — AI being the saviour.
While you have companies and industries relying on AI, Zerodha on the other hand is all out to safeguard its employees from any form of AI job takeover. The company has been clear on its stance to adopt AI only if they deem necessary and it will not be at the cost of someone’s job. With a few companies allowing AI to replace jobs, and many others creating new jobs and also embracing AI to empower their employees to effectively use it without posing any threat to their jobs, it is fair to say that AI is becoming integral in all jobs. However, whether it will be a deciding factor to safeguard one’s job is not conclusive.
