Artificial intelligence has exploded in recent years in terms of its capabilities, scalability, and usage. Employers, employees, and even casual users experimenting with the technology, have embraced generative AI, resulting in an explosion of use cases.
But how will AI impact the world of employment? Will it lead to fewer jobs? Different jobs? Different ways of hiring and employee development? The answer to all these questions is likely, “yes,” although the true impact of these developments is uncertain and constantly evolving.
But how will AI impact the world of employment? Will it lead to fewer jobs? Different jobs? Different ways of hiring and employee development? The answer to all of these questions is likely, “yes,” although the true impacts of these developments is uncertain and constantly evolving.
For this feature, we solicited input from industry experts in AI, hiring and employment to get their insights.
AI Isn’t a Full-Scale Replacement of Human Labor – At Least Not Yet
WSU Professor Rich Johnson is an associate professor of Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship within the Carson College of Business in Pullman, Washington. He is also a member of WSU’s Office of Research AI Advisory Group. Johnson believes that AI is likely to disrupt many current job roles but that the technology isn’t mature enough to completely replace them yet.
“I believe that AI is likely to alter the scope of many current jobs rather than eliminating them fully,” he says. “While AI capabilities are very impressive, AI is still ‘dumb’ in many ways,” Johnson points out. AI, he says, can’t make judgment, interpret the meaningfulness of its own output—or consider the practical or ethical implications of its recommendations. “Ultimately, employees need to remain at the center of the deployment of these tools,” he says. “But their jobs are likely to look very different. Some tasks will be eliminated, some expanded, and new tasks will emerge. People who learn how to leverage AI will be at a great advantage as jobs evolve.”
Similarly, George Burgess, a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold four companies, with his most recent venture being Modern Day Talent, notes that his organization hasn’t necessarily eliminated roles, but the emergence of AI has influenced the kind of output Modern Day Talent expects from employees and their organization as a whole.
“In our case, the number of hires and positions hasn’t changed much due to AI,” Burgess says. Still, he says, he has observed two key shifts.
“First, we now expect new hires to be proficient in using AI tools or to quickly adopt the ones we recommend,” he says. “This is important as many roles, especially those involving content creation, brainstorming, and marketing rely on these tools.”
Second, Burgess says, “our expectations for productivity and output quality have evolved. With AI tools, we anticipate that our team can work faster and more efficiently, delivering high-quality results in less time. So, while AI hasn’t reduced our workforce, it has raised the bar for productivity, tool adoption, and overall job performance.”
Employees Need Training on the Use of AI, but It’s a Moving Target
To the extent AI will augment and not replace certain jobs, it’s essential that employees learn how to most effectively leverage that technology. When a tool can create massive productivity gains, organizations that fail to capitalize are sure to fall behind their competitors who do.
The challenge for employers and learning and development professionals is the rapid pace of AI advancement. Skills relevant today may be obsolete in a few years or even months, while emerging capabilities can represent brand new paradigm shifts that need to be addressed.
“It will be challenging for HR to develop training programs that help employees develop the skills to leverage AI because AI capabilities are always changing and evolving,” notes WSU’s Johnson. “The skills needed today may look very different than those needed in 3-5 years.”
AI in Hiring
Just as job applicants have discovered the efficiencies of leveraging AI in fine-tuning resumes and drafting cover letters, employers too have found great value in using AI to find candidates and market open positions.
Karen Cosentino is Chief People Officer at Barge Design Solutions, a multidisciplinary architecture and engineering design firm based in Nashville, and she says generative AI tools have played a significant and positive role in her company’s recruitment efforts.
“Generative AI has been instrumental in improving our recruitment and hiring practices at Barge,” says Cosentino. “Using tools like ChatGPT-4, we’ve been able to create engaging, search-optimized job postings that have significantly increased the quality and quantity of job applicants. AI has also increased the speed of our hiring process by augmenting HR-related tasks like designing policies and crafting onboarding materials.”
Cosentino argues that this AI use case has had measurable impacts on Barge’s recruitment efforts. “Our AI-enhanced job postings have significantly increased our applicant pool, allowing us to hire more people than ever before,” she explains.
In one case, Cosentino shares, an AI-enhanced job posting received over 250 applications, leading to 118 interviews. Previously, she says, non-AI enhanced job listings received only 111 applications and five interview referrals. In addition, she says, “AI has been a major cost saver, as it has allowed us to fill challenging roles in the AEC industry, such as a senior civil engineer position, without the need for costly recruiter fees that are typically around 30-35% of the salary.”
AI in Training
AI has also found many important uses in the world of employee training. Training teams have been able to custom-design training programs and content for individual employees at scale, meaning custom training can now be delivered to more employees at less cost than ever before. AI can also be used to create in-house chatbots to allow employees a real-time asset for quick questions about company policies and processes.
It’s no surprise that artificial intelligence has had a significant impact on employment. The surprise is perhaps in how that impact has manifested itself so far. While we have yet to see a massive displacement of human workers in favor of AI, we have seen big shifts in the skills employers demand from workers with respect to AI, how both applicants and recruiters leverage AI in job searches and how employees train their workers. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect even greater change and disruption.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.