According to the Future of Jobs report released by the World Economic Forum in October 2020, as many as 85 million jobs will be replaced by machines run by artificial intelligence by 2025. In turn, 97 million new positions will be created in their place. However, they will require completely different skills. So what changes await us? What opportunities and threats arise from the use of AI in business? In today’s post, we will focus on the impact of artificial intelligence on employment as well as the cost of doing business.

Threats and opportunities of AI in business – table of contents:

  1. Threats and opportunities of AI in business
  2. Jobs in the Age of AI
  3. Concerns
  4. Opportunities
  5. The cost of operating an AI-enabled business
  6. Easier anticipation and digitization of business
  7. Cost of innovation
  8. Threats and opportunities of AI in business – summary

Threats and opportunities of AI in business

What will jobs look like when the use of artificial intelligence becomes even more widespread than now? How does the development of artificial intelligence already influence? And how will AI affect the way and cost of doing business? In today’s post, we will try to answer these questions. Then we’ll look at the opportunities and threats that come with the increasing use of AI in business.

Jobs in the Age of AI

Concerns about the massive changes that the fourth industrial revolution is preparing for workers are not unfounded. According to a McKinsey report, technically speaking, already half of the work done by humans could become automated. In contrast, according to the Future of Jobs report issued by the World Economic Forum, only those who owe their position in the labor market to the following skills shouldn’t worry about their employment:

  • critical thinking
  • creative problem-solving
  • flexibility
  • quick learning

Probably since even if they are in danger of losing their jobs, they will manage to retrain in time. However, what about those who do not have such abilities?

Concerns

Concerns about the shrinking number of jobs primarily involve positions that do not require specialized skills. Indeed, the changes will mainly affect people who perform repetitive tasks and are thus easy to automate. Employees will have to learn to use automation to speed up work and will have to deal with problem-solving or those whose solutions require decision-making themselves.

This includes:

  • clerical work – because of increasingly better natural language processing (NLP) tools,
  • direct customer service – and in particular answering standard questions,
  • standard translation.

Assistant work is also on the list of jobs that may soon be replaced by software. Taking notes on meetings and summarizing them, optimally organizing the calendar, and synchronizing events planned in the organization – such facilities can become available to every employee thanks to virtual assistants.

Workers performing warehousing, logistics as well as transportation tasks also have reason to worry. The reason is the increasing automation of warehouse spaces, which are thus becoming cheaper and safer. Moreover, the ever-improving autonomous cars and smart cities, or high-speed railroads, which, by their complexity and need to react in fractions of a second, simply cannot be operated by humans.

In the creative industries, too, AI is beginning to play an increasingly prominent role. This is especially true for generating text, images as well as video content on a given topic, even creating new whole coverages, posts or clips.

Threats and opportunities of AI in business

Opportunities

All hope is that AI needs humans. And not only to create artificial intelligence algorithms but also to teach and make decisions about the results created by AI. This is where new professions and future jobs will appear exponentially. For the time being, AI cannot learn on its own, so there will be many new posts related to AI design and implementation – from chatbots to analytical tools to industrial robots.

The greatest opportunity on the horizon for working with AI is to expand and supplement employees’ knowledge and capabilities in real-time. For example, displaying prompts to supplement employee information in the hiring process or selecting the optimal type of crop for a given agricultural area.

Another opportunity is to reduce unreliability when performing activities that require high force or precision. That could include, for instance, construction work as well as the production of microprocessors.

However, the most anticipated change associated with the application of artificial intelligence in business is the offloading of repetitive, tedious tasks to employees and checking the quality of work done by others (AI-powered QA).

The cost of operating an AI-enabled business

Increasing demand for artificial intelligence specialists is both an opportunity and a threat to business. After all, highly specialized employees mean rising and recurring costs, while business expectations for the application of artificial intelligence solutions are usually associated with reduced spending.

Easier anticipation and digitization of business

One of the most important factors in reducing expenses for businesses using AI will be the use of powerful analytics tools. Reducing risk-taking costs with inexpensive and readily available analytical tools is available now.

The second solution available almost at your fingertips is the digitization of business, especially in the areas of:

  • documents
  • jobs
  • accelerating the sales process.

The effect of AI-assisted digitalization is to reduce the cost of processing and storing documents. Another important factor is the reduction of workplace organization costs due to the increasing popularity of remote work. This is because it has turned out that remote work not only does not reduce productivity but even improves the efficiency of employees.

An important effect of the digitization of business, which became apparent during the lockdowns, is also the acceleration of trade thanks to e-commerce and the accompanying AI-assisted marketing. Acceleration, meanwhile, has reduced storage and warehousing costs thanks to the proliferation of precision planning tools.

Cost of innovation

However, AI-related innovations come with substantial costs. These are primarily rising recurring fees and business dependence on subscription-based AI services (AiaaS). This is because their implementation is not a one-time expense, but a process that requires continuous improvement according to the train-explain-sustain principle.

Another significant expenditure that AI-based businesses have to prepare for is the hiring of specialists, and the need to constantly innovate and fit products into the existing network of AI solutions. For example, a new product belonging to the IoT domain – a smart vacuum cleaner or garage door – must synchronize with existing systems. What’s more, these systems are dynamically evolving, so it’s difficult here to talk about a solution introduced for many years. Rather, they are developed in an agile manner (Agile), that is, they are constantly adapted to changing market needs as well as updated to meet security requirements.

Threats and opportunities of AI in business – summary

AI will undoubtedly take jobs away from many people. However, it will also give us new professions, specializations as well as perspectives. Skills increasingly valued on the job market will thus involve the ability to operate artificial intelligence systems; as well as flexibility, resilience to stress and openness to change.

Such a prospect of the future raises anxieties but they can turn into aspirations by the fascinating aspects of the fourth industrial revolution. All in all, the dangers and risks of business operations can help us anticipate and overcome just that – artificial intelligence.

Find out more about threats and opportunities of AI in business in the first part of this article.

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Threats and opportunities of AI in business (part 2) | AI in business #3 robert whitney avatar 1background

Author: Robert Whitney

JavaScript expert and instructor who coaches IT departments. His main goal is to up-level team productivity by teaching others how to effectively cooperate while coding.

AI in business:

  1. Threats and opportunities of AI in business (part 1)
  2. Threats and opportunities of AI in business (part 2)
  3. AI applications in business - overview
  4. AI-assisted text chatbots
  5. Business NLP today and tomorrow
  6. The role of AI in business decision-making
  7. Scheduling social media posts. How can AI help?
  8. Automated social media posts
  9. New services and products operating with AI
  10. What are the weaknesses of my business idea? A brainstorming session with ChatGPT
  11. Using ChatGPT in business
  12. Synthetic actors. Top 3 AI video generators
  13. 3 useful AI graphic design tools. Generative AI in business
  14. 3 awesome AI writers you must try out today
  15. Exploring the power of AI in music creation
  16. Navigating new business opportunities with ChatGPT-4
  17. AI tools for the manager
  18. 6 awesome ChatGTP plugins that will make your life easier
  19. 3 grafików AI. Generatywna sztuczna inteligencja dla biznesu
  20. What is the future of AI according to McKinsey Global Institute?
  21. Artificial intelligence in business - Introduction
  22. What is NLP, or natural language processing in business
  23. Automatic document processing
  24. Google Translate vs DeepL. 5 applications of machine translation for business
  25. The operation and business applications of voicebots
  26. Virtual assistant technology, or how to talk to AI?
  27. What is Business Intelligence?
  28. Will artificial intelligence replace business analysts?
  29. How can artificial intelligence help with BPM?
  30. AI and social media – what do they say about us?
  31. Artificial intelligence in content management
  32. Creative AI of today and tomorrow
  33. Multimodal AI and its applications in business
  34. New interactions. How is AI changing the way we operate devices?
  35. RPA and APIs in a digital company
  36. The future job market and upcoming professions
  37. AI in EdTech. 3 examples of companies that used the potential of artificial intelligence
  38. Artificial intelligence and the environment. 3 AI solutions to help you build a sustainable business
  39. AI content detectors. Are they worth it?
  40. ChatGPT vs Bard vs Bing. Which AI chatbot is leading the race?
  41. Is chatbot AI a competitor to Google search?
  42. Effective ChatGPT Prompts for HR and Recruitment
  43. Prompt engineering. What does a prompt engineer do?
  44. AI Mockup generator. Top 4 tools
  45. AI and what else? Top technology trends for business in 2024
  46. AI and business ethics. Why you should invest in ethical solutions
  47. Meta AI. What should you know about Facebook and Instagram's AI-supported features?
  48. AI regulation. What do you need to know as an entrepreneur?
  49. 5 new uses of AI in business
  50. AI products and projects - how are they different from others?
  51. AI-assisted process automation. Where to start?
  52. How do you match an AI solution to a business problem?
  53. AI as an expert on your team
  54. AI team vs. division of roles
  55. How to choose a career field in AI?
  56. Is it always worth it to add artificial intelligence to the product development process?
  57. AI in HR: How recruitment automation affects HR and team development
  58. 6 most interesting AI tools in 2023
  59. 6 biggest business mishaps caused by AI
  60. What is the company's AI maturity analysis?
  61. AI for B2B personalization
  62. ChatGPT use cases. 18 examples of how to improve your business with ChatGPT in 2024
  63. Microlearning. A quick way to get new skills
  64. The most interesting AI implementations in companies in 2024
  65. What do artificial intelligence specialists do?
  66. What challenges does the AI project bring?
  67. Top 8 AI tools for business in 2024
  68. AI in CRM. What does AI change in CRM tools?
  69. The UE AI Act. How does Europe regulate the use of artificial intelligence
  70. Sora. How will realistic videos from OpenAI change business?
  71. Top 7 AI website builders
  72. No-code tools and AI innovations
  73. How much does using AI increase the productivity of your team?
  74. How to use ChatGTP for market research?
  75. How to broaden the reach of your AI marketing campaign?
  76. "We are all developers". How can citizen developers help your company?
  77. AI in transportation and logistics
  78. What business pain points can AI fix?
  79. Artificial intelligence in the media
  80. AI in banking and finance. Stripe, Monzo, and Grab
  81. AI in the travel industry
  82. How AI is fostering the birth of new technologies
  83. The revolution of AI in social media
  84. AI in e-commerce. Overview of global leaders
  85. Top 4 AI image creation tools
  86. Top 5 AI tools for data analysis
  87. AI strategy in your company - how to build it?
  88. Best AI courses – 6 awesome recommendations
  89. Optimizing social media listening with AI tools
  90. IoT + AI, or how to reduce energy costs in a company
  91. AI in logistics. 5 best tools
  92. GPT Store – an overview of the most interesting GPTs for business
  93. LLM, GPT, RAG... What do AI acronyms mean?
  94. AI robots – the future or present of business?
  95. What is the cost of implementing AI in a company?
  96. How can AI help in a freelancer’s career?
  97. Automating work and increasing productivity. A guide to AI for freelancers
  98. AI for startups – best tools
  99. Building a website with AI
  100. OpenAI, Midjourney, Anthropic, Hugging Face. Who is who in the world of AI?
  101. Eleven Labs and what else? The most promising AI startups
  102. Synthetic data and its importance for the development of your business
  103. Top AI search engines. Where to look for AI tools?
  104. Video AI. The latest AI video generators
  105. AI for managers. How AI can make your job easier
  106. What’s new in Google Gemini? Everything you need to know
  107. AI in Poland. Companies, meetings, and conferences
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  109. AI and the future of work. How to prepare your business for change?
  110. AI voice cloning for business. How to create personalized voice messages with AI?
  111. Fact-checking and AI hallucinations
  112. AI in recruitment – developing recruitment materials step-by-step
  113. Midjourney v6. Innovations in AI image generation
  114. AI in SMEs. How can SMEs compete with giants using AI?
  115. How is AI changing influencer marketing?
  116. Is AI really a threat to developers? Devin and Microsoft AutoDev
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  118. Best AI chatbots for ecommerce. Platforms
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  120. Taming AI. How to take the first steps to apply AI in your business?
  121. Perplexity, Bing Copilot, or You.com? Comparing AI search engines
  122. ReALM. A groundbreaking language model from Apple?
  123. AI experts in Poland
  124. Google Genie — a generative AI model that creates fully interactive worlds from images
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  127. AI video generation. New horizons in video content production for businesses
  128. Best AI transcription tools. How to transform long recordings into concise summaries?
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  130. The role of AI in content moderation