How AI could disrupt the future labour market

In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), change is inevitable.

From people’s personal to professional lives, AI is continually finding ways to integrate itself into routines, sometimes creating disruptions and at other times offering significant improvements.

The rise of generative AI, especially following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, has sparked numerous discussions about its potential impact.

Among the most pressing concerns is the anticipated jobs displacement due to AI’s adoption in the labour market.

“The emergence of human-machine collaborative intelligence is creating a new paradigm where humans are not really the only core source of force in the workplace,” Xiaochen Zhang, founder and Chief AI Officer of AI 2030, told Euronews Next.

Recently, at an event in Zurich, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, described the impact of AI as a “tsunami” that will hit the labour force.

According to Georgieva, AI is likely to affect 60 per cent of jobs in advanced economies and 40 per cent of jobs globally, with little time left to prepare people for it.

However, despite these looming changes, the era of AI completely taking over human tasks has not yet arrived.

According to Zhang, in the current market, humans still play a fundamental role, and machines have yet to replace them, with the current focus being more on human-machine collaboration.

“Every job potentially will be redesigned under the concept of human-machine collaborative intelligence,” Zhang said.

“This concept itself is very powerful where the machine will take on much bigger roles than before where it is not a tool anymore, it is part of the work itself,” he added.

While AI’s presence in the workplace is not a new phenomenon, more research confirms its potential impact on the jobs market, especially during the hiring stage.

A joint report from LinkedIn and Microsoft revealed that 66 per cent of leaders would not consider hiring candidates lacking AI skills.

Additionally, the report showed that 71 per cent would likely choose a less experienced candidate with AI capabilities over a more experienced one without such skills.

People are taking matters into their own hands by learning to use AI tools and incorporating them into their professional tasks, with 75 per cent of knowledge workers admitting to using AI in the workplace, the report also found.

The top AI skill for the current job market

While AI has yet to fully take over human tasks, not all jobs are expected to be affected equally, and some might even risk disappearing.

“As part of humans wanting to remain competitive in the jobs market, competing with other humans, AI is becoming the differentiation factor,” Zhang said.

For instance, Zhang explains that the creative industry is on the verge of a huge change as AI technology gets better.

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Some tasks, such as content creation, design, research, and editing, could easily be conducted with AI tools that are constantly improving in terms of quality and efficiency.

The solution, according to Zhang, is mastering the use of those AI tools and leveraging these skills to redesign the way work is conducted.

For example, people can learn how to effectively prompt and communicate with large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, which are continuously acquiring more advanced capabilities. 

By mastering these skills, professionals can capitalise on the rising demand for proficiency in using AI tools.

While it is important to adopt AI tools and learn how to use them, people could also focus on improving the skills that distinguish them from AI, experts say.

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Authenticity and human creation, according to Zhang, could become more valuable, as human creativity is fueled by life experiences that machines can’t replicate.

But he sees it as companies’ responsibility to redesign the way work is conducted to leverage people’s skills for better human-machine collaboration.