Many companies investing in AI are “unsure” how it will make them more efficient — but employees should still adapt to the tech or risk falling behind, a workplace guru has said.
“So far it looks like AI is a great culprit for job and cost cutting, especially in tech firms,” Thomas Roulet, a professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider.
But the anticipated efficiency gain from AI hasn’t “fully materialized,” and “many firms betting on AI are unsure how this gain will materialize,” Roulet said.
His comments echoed findings from Bain & Company’s annual technology report, released this month. The consultancy wrote that AI was expected to boost productivity, but “most companies haven’t unlocked these benefits at scale or seen meaningful gains in cost efficiency or revenue growth,” as they “haven’t cracked the formula yet.”
Danish economists tracked 25,000 workers across 7,000 workplaces and found that the widespread adoption of AI chatbots was not affecting earnings or hours worked, per a working paper published in May.
Others have disagreed. “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary, who owns stakes in scores of small businesses, recently told Business Insider that when it comes to AI, “you actually can see the productivity and measure it on a dollar-by-dollar basis.”
While ignoring AI poses a “risk of being perceived as lagging,” he said, this could lead to “many firms embracing AI in a symbolic and ceremonial manner,” he said, when they should be “thinking more deeply” about how they can harness the tech.
AI could determine winners and losers among workers and companies
Roulet told Business Insider that AI’s benefits would be distributed unevenly, exacerbating inequality.
He said that as the tech takes on more people’s tasks, it’s likely the “gap widens” between those who have skills that “directly complement or reinforce AI,” from software developers to creative professionals, and those who don’t, such as administrative and manual workers.
Goldman Sachs economists estimated in August that “generative AI will eventually displace 6-7% of US workers.” Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence company, has found that jobs such as information specialist, business analyst, and operations administrator have seen the biggest declines in the number of open roles over the past two years.
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Business intelligence firm Gartner recently forecast that global spending on AI would nearly double from below $1 trillion last year to north of $2 trillion in 2026.
Tech giants such as OpenAI and Oracle plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into AI microchips, data centers, and AI infrastructure.
Roulet also said that dollar investment is “disproportionately targeting AI to the expense of other sectors,” including the industries that generate the high-quality data required to train and support AI.
Learning and adapting to the AI era will be key
Roulet advised young workers “to be strategic about the skills they are investing time and energy in.”
He warned that AI might make some skills redundant, but future technologies could quickly “reshuffle the situation again.”
Given that danger, Roulet recommended they develop “learning skills” and a passion for learning to give them the best shot at adapting to the job market’s needs.
