AI will put 41% of the world’s largest companies out of work in the next five years

Ahead of the annual meeting in Davos, experts from the World Economic Forum (WEF) published a report on the likely consequences of introducing artificial intelligence into work processes. For the first time, the effect of introducing AI was no longer considered a positive factor. By 2030, AI-driven job cuts will occur in 41% of the world’s largest companies. Now AI is also considered a threat to human intellectual work.

Image source: AI generation Kandinsky 3.1

The WEF survey is the latest data that reflects the incredible speed of paradigm shift in how employers perceive AI. Previously, artificial intelligence was perceived as an assistant or a kind of enhancer of human skills. This will partly happen, but the ability of AI to solve a number of intellectual problems in the production process will also make it unnecessary to involve certain masses of people in work. In particular, graphic designers and legal consultants have approached the border line. These two professions, noted the WEF, are right behind the ten most at risk of becoming automated.

In general, in the coming years, people will begin to lose jobs related to the processing of postal items, in secretarial positions and in the field of payroll calculations (work time tracking). Such specialists will have to change their activity or take advanced training courses, for example, in order to be able to work together with AI.

A survey of CEOs of the world’s largest companies found that 77% of them plan to retrain employees between 2025 and 2030 so that they can use AI in their work. At the same time, for the first time, the report indicated that AI and other technologies are no longer expected to have a “positive impact” on jobs.

At the same time, skills to use AI in everyday work are becoming more in demand. Just last year, it was found that about 70% of companies plan to hire new employees with skills in developing tools and improving applications with AI, and 62% intend to attract more people with the skills to work more effectively with AI. We can only hope that people will be “strengthened” by the introduction of AI, and will not be forced to look at the fruits of their labor from the street.