Elly Yates-Roberts |
Four out of five companies have created new jobs as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, according to new research from consulting firm Capgemini. These organisations are producing jobs at a senior level, with two in three jobs being created at the level of a manager or above. Furthermore, among organisations that have implemented AI at scale, more than half said that AI has not destroyed any jobs in their organisation.
The report Turning AI into concrete value: the successful implementers’ toolkit, surveyed nearly 1,000 organisations that are implementing artificial intelligence (AI), either as a pilot or at scale. The research counters fears that AI will cause massive job losses in the short term and highlights the growth opportunities.
The report also provides evidence that organisations see AI as a means of reducing the time employees spend on routine and administrative tasks to enable them to deliver more value. For those who have implemented AI at scale, the vast majority believe that AI will make complex jobs easier (89%) and that intelligent machines will coexist with humans within their businesses (88%).
“What we really want to do is to use humans to the best of their capabilities,” said Michael Natusch, global head of AI at life insurance provider Prudential. “AI is taking away the time humans previously spent on repetitive issues and allowing them to focus on where human intelligence can drive value.”
The study found that tech-savvy businesses are using AI to increase sales, facilitate customer engagement and generate business insights. And it is working: three-quarters of firms are already seeing a 10% uplift in sales since starting to use the technology. The customer experience is a big focus of AI adopters: 73% think AI can increase customer satisfaction scores and 65% believe it could reduce future customer churn.
However, the research indicates that many organisations have yet to align their AI investments with business opportunities. More than half (58%) are focused on “need to do” implementations, or those that are high complexity/high benefit projects like customer service issues, while only 46% are deploying “must do” AI implementations with low complexity/high benefit.
“AI has the capacity to revolutionise every business in every market sector; its potential is broad and unlimited,” said Ron Tolido, chief technology officer for the Insights and Data practice at Capgemini. “However, we are seeing a large contrast between those who are rolling out applied AI solutions at scale and reaping tangible business benefits, versus those who are simply trialing the technology.”