The implementation of artificial intelligence will mean that in the next three years some 1,400 million people, 40% of the 3,400 million that make up the workforce worldwide, will have to retrain in some competence, according to a study and two surveys conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value.

However, they do not believe that technology will lead to job losses, although it will entail the restructuring of companies and processes, as well as the skills of the workers themselves.

Thus, the executives surveyed by IBM estimate that this percentage of the global workforce will have to retrain or learn new skills due to “the implementation of AI and automation.”

In other words, it will not be so much that workers are replaced because new technologies can carry out their work, according to the study, but that new jobs will be created or existing ones will be reconsidered and for this it will be necessary to acquire new knowledge.

The incidence will be different depending on the position and the sector, but, on average, 87% of managers believe that jobs will increase in functions with generative artificial intelligence.

It will be especially prominent in attorney (97% of those asked believe so), risks and compliance (93%) and finance (also 93%). However, among executives it is expected that by 2025 generative AI will already affect all levels of the company.

It will be especially notable among the lowest positions, from the outset, where the impact will be ‘extreme’ for 18% of those surveyed, ‘significant’ for 29% and ‘moderate’ for 30%. Among those with experience there will be a moderate impact for 48% and it also stands out that 6% believe that there will be an extreme impact among senior managers.

Regarding the traditional debate about whether artificial intelligence will end the jobs of human workers, IBM has a somewhat tangential opinion: the technology will not, but whoever masters it will.

“AI will not replace people, but the people who use AI will replace the people who do not use it,” summarizes the document, which also details that advances in these tools “promise to drastically change traditional business models” and transform “the work employees do every day”.

To carry out the study, two surveys conducted with global leaders (3,000 people in 28 countries) and with workers (21,000 employees from 22 countries) were used.

Interestingly, the study also reflects a drop in the weight of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career skills, which went from being the most important in 2016 to number 12 in this same ranking in 2023.

The analysis is that, in a certain way, they die of success, because it is assumed that the employee owns them, at least by the management teams.. “Looking ahead, executives are more focused on developing personal skills,” the report highlights.

Time management and priorities, collaboration or communication skills are some of the most prominent. The development of technology itself also helps, which means that less technical knowledge is needed to develop technical jobs, such as programming, which can also be part of the more mundane tasks that are automated.

In this sense, the report highlights that “you cannot run the company of tomorrow with the talent of yesterday”, but neither can you “connect the talent of tomorrow in an operating model of yesterday”.

That is, in part, where artificial intelligence would come in, more intended to optimize processes or provide information to make decisions than to replace workers.

This is illustrated by the section dedicated to salary increases or promotions, which, according to the IBM Institute for Business, will be made with the support of the data provided by AI, but always with the approval of a human being.

Paradigm changes also mean, for example, adopting operating models based on the product or the ways of working: that teams have objectives to achieve, not tasks to perform. One in three of the best performing companies has already opted for this mindset.

Likewise, more is committed to the aforementioned additional training of workers (57%) than to hiring new employees.

“Although it is easy to assume that people are not adopting technology because they do not know how to use it, it may simply be that they are resistant to change and afraid of being replaced,” the report details.

In this scenario, they believe that managers should be able to convey to their employees the message that they want to increase the value of what they do, not simply reduce costs.

And also encourage experimentation and communication, where the figure of intermediate positions becomes important “to help employees better understand their objectives” and to work in an environment of some uncertainty.

“With AI automating many traditional tasks, middle managers can lead more and manage less,” they summarize.