In traditional companies, an individual’s skillset has been a blend of various technical, quantitative, and interpersonal skills. The successful employee applied those skills in the right configuration to fit the immediate situation. The introduction of AI into a workplace will bring more discrete attention to these skill categories:
- Process-oriented skills apply to filing, manufacturing, and following processes
- Quantitative-reasoning skills utilize advanced mathematics to interpret analytics and to make recommendations, decisions. adjustments
- Social-ability and creativity skills cover the full range of communication, persuasion, conflict resolution, critical and strategic thinking, complex information processing, and interpersonal relations
Process-oriented skills directly serve the functions fulfilled by AI. Quantitative reasoning is relevant to AI to a degree that will increase as AI technologies advance. Social-ability skills will remain predominantly human-performed in even the most AI-enhanced organizations. Pedro Uria-Recio predicts that this decade, 2020-29, will see those skills broken down in this way:
- 80% of the process-oriented tasks performed by AI
- 50% of the quantitative-reasoning tasks by humans, 50% by AI
- 80% of the social-ability skills performed by humans
Summary: Action Items for Planning
The overall changes brought about by the transition to AI across all industries and the impacts already felt among companies’ workforces demonstrate that plans are essential to accommodate the technological transformation. Planning must include attention to changes that impact the workforce, and ensure those changes are not merely acceptable, but actually favorable to those most affected. The workforce is most affected, immediately, by transition to AI and automation. Here are two action items to include in your planning:
- Project the degree and rate that AI will increase within your company
- Identify the specific changes AI will generate by changing the assignment of tasks: machine tasks as opposed to cognitive tasks
Part 2 of How Human-Machine Partnerships Are Transforming the Workplace will look closely at the reactions of workers to the workforce transformation we’ve detailed here. That article will examine conceptual considerations as well as recommended actions for companies to consider to maximize integration of their technological and workforce transformations.