Embracing the Promises and Realities
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AI EMBRACING THE PROMISES AND REALITIES AI and the World of Work: Embracing the Promises and Realities TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................4 Gaining a Business Perspective..............................................................................................4 The State of AI .............................................................................................................4 Impact on Jobs .............................................................................................................5 Impact on HR and Talent ................................................................................................5 THE STATE OF AI: WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE .....................................................................6 Innovation Comes of Age .....................................................................................................8 An Elusive Definition: The “AI Effect” ...............................................................................8 A Quick Look Under the Hood ........................................................................................8 A Sudden Explosion in Interest: 70+ Years in the Making ........................................................ 10 Social Factors ..............................................................................................................11 Commercial Developments ...........................................................................................11 Technological Advances .............................................................................................. 12 The Path Ahead: Big Investment Fuels Big Advances .............................................................. 12 Fundamental AI Capability Advances ............................................................................ 14 Expanding AI Connections and Evolving Applications ..................................................... 14 Dorothy was Right! (Almost) ................................................................................................ 15 AI’S IMPACT ON JOBS: READING THE INDECIPHERABLE TEA LEAVES .............................................20 Replacing Human Workers: A Closer Look at RPA ................................................................... 21 Transforming Roles: New Pressures on the Knowledge Worker ................................................22 New or Expanding Fields of Expertise and Growing Skills Demands .........................................25 A New “Old” Challenge in the Job Market ............................................................................26 IMPACT ON HR: TRANSFORMING THE DYNAMICS OF BUSINESS AND TALENT ...............................27 AI at Work in HR and Talent Today ........................................................................................28 The AI Future: Driving a Strategic Talent Function ................................................................... 31 Workforce Planning and Strategy: The Power of Knowing ................................................ 31 Talent Acquisition: Smart Technology, Efficient Processes, Enabled People ........................34 Post-Hire Engagement and Workforce Management: Reinforcing Employee Value ..............38 Talent Implications, Ethics, and the Forces of Change ......................................................40 CONCLUSION: A FUTURE THAT WILL TRANSFORM TALENT ........................................................... 41 ENDNOTES .............................................................................................................................43 A truck with no driver travels 120 miles to deliver a shipment of beer in Colorado.1 The quintessential 21st-century taxi service experiments with driverless cars.2 A traditional adversary to brick-and-mortar plans a real grocery store with no checkout line.3 A major investment bank replaces managers with automated stock pickers.4 A word to the wise: artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer artificial. It is now very real. More than 70 years after its initial appearance, AI has made the leap from theoretical promise to practical reality. Machines can now perform human activities that were considered fantasy as recently as a decade ago. At the same time, AI has given rise to the worst science-fiction fears of the “Terminator” machine — an independently thinking robot that dominates and destroys humankind. Clearly, the level of drama in modern commentary about AI is high, but somewhere between the promise, the skepticism, and the threat is the reality of AI today. It’s a reality that business leaders, workforce strategists, and talent decision makers can no longer afford to ignore. Gaining a Business Perspective AI is displacing old jobs and creating new ones, and it is reshaping how companies compete for talent and get work done. From setting strategic priorities to adopting technology and evolving the workforce, some of the most important drivers of business success will be influenced by the continuing innovations in AI. So, what does AI really mean to the future of business, work, and talent? It is a complicated topic, so Allegis Group set out to provide a framework that focuses on understanding the state of the technology today, its impact on jobs, and its impact on talent management. THE STATE OF AI Many talent and business decision makers do not fully recognize how AI-driven innovations are influencing the world. AI is taking over real jobs from production and knowledge workers alike. It is also playing a role in the evolution of talent management, touching everything from sourcing and recruiting to candidate care and employee engagement. ALLEGIS GROUP AI and the World of Work: Embracing the Promises and Realities | 4 From its infancy in 1940s academic research to IMPACT ON HR AND TALENT the current world of digitalization and robust applications, AI has made significant progress. Finally, AI is on a path to change the rules for how Historically, nearly every advance in AI was companies attract, engage, and retain talent. It met with some setback that would stall its offers an opportunity to improve how employers development for years. Today, this start-and-stop define job requirements. It can analyze and cycle has been finally broken as new applications learn from large data sets to achieve a nearly of AI are being brought to market faster than intuitive ability to match requirements to ideal ever. As a result, AI is more than a promise for candidates. And it can facilitate candidate and the future; it is now in use for many applications employee engagement in ways that were not across many industries. possible in the past. AI will not replace the need for talent professionals; IMPACT ON JOBS instead, it will change the nature of what they need to do to succeed. For those who lead and While rapid development and adoption of AI execute talent strategy, gaining an understanding marks a positive step forward, new developments of the forces of change is the first step in rising to are also giving rise to concerns about AI’s the new demands of an AI-enabled workplace. influence on the workforce. One of the most talked about concerns is that smart machines are taking jobs away from people. It is true that AI will not replace the need for talent the technology is taking on many skills formerly professionals; instead, it will change the attributed to humans, but AI is also creating nature of what they need to do to succeed. demand for new skills.5 For workforce and talent planners, this evolution For business leaders, a practical view of AI begins means an open mind, and extreme agility will be with a deeper look at the three key areas of essential to success. AI is creating demands for understanding: the state of AI today, its impact specialized engineering and programming skills, on jobs, and its impact on talent management. many of which did not exist in the recent past. Put in context, AI is more than a great story or In the future, value-creation and creativity, rather sci-fi topic; it is part of the real business landscape than an ability to manage a rote process, will today, and it is shaping the way companies increasingly determine the type of workers that compete for talent in the future. are in high demand. 5 THE STATE OF AI: STILL THINK OF AI AS SCIENCE FICTION? THINK AGAIN.6 “Voice assistant software is “Get excited for the #1 AI app today.” self-driving cars.” In a recent survey, 32% of corporate executives Global management consulting firm McKinsey cited Siri (Apple), Google Assistant, and Alexa predicts 300,000 lives will be saved in the (Amazon) as the top AI tech in their workplace. coming decade by self-driving cars that reduce fatal accidents. Autonomous vehicles will also save $190 billion annually in critical care costs “AI bots will power 85% of customer and save users up to 50 minutes per day by service interactions by 2020.” freeing up driving time to focus on other tasks. Gartner research predicts that AI will support 85% of customer service by 2020. “AI drives a $14 trillion to $33 trillion economic impact.” “Digital assistants will Bank of America predicts AI will ‘know you’ by 2018.” fuel growth and cost reduction that Gartner also predicts that digital customer generates $14-$33 trillion annually. assistants will develop quickly to converse with humans, understanding context, history, timing, and tone as soon as 2018.