How AI affects the workplace

Artificial Intelligence is still a term that generates both excitement and fear in people. The biggest concern of many is that the robots will take all our existing jobs, and leave those humans without sources of income. But in reality, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a blessing for the workplace. 

Since the AI can take care of the most repetitive and boring tasks in companies so that human personnel can take care of things that really matter. Making the company more productive. 

HR departments, recruiters, and hiring managers are taking advantage of many different types of AI-powered tools to improve the hiring process for everyone involved too. Even before you set foot in your workplace for the first time, the IA provides information on whether you are right for the job position. Especially in companies that receive thousands of CV’s a year, AI makes the job much simpler by searching for keywords and numbers, so that hiring managers only see CV’s that meet their requirements. 

Main uses of AI 

Quality: Human-error is always a factor, but with AI, it’s much harder for mistakes to occur. It also saves time for everyone, because with information collected, it is easier to know what the customer wants, and how to get it to him in time. 

Productivity: As stated above, the more mechanical tasks can be left to a computer. According to McKinsey, 53% of retail activities such as packaging and stocking could be automated. It is also important to understand, that human labor always has to be present to provide things that machines cannot. For example, relationship with customers, decisions, and the most social parts of everything.

Communication and reminders: With tools like Slack and the Google Service Cloud; these services can be programmed to remind you of all your itineraries, and can also automate responses for when you are not available to respond.

Personnel training: When former employees retire or go to another company The AI can verify and record the processes that they carried so that they can be taught to new employees. Also to be able to learn from old mistakes and the dangers that these could bring. 

Surveillance: This part may be the part that can bring fear to employees. Since they can be constantly monitored by higher ranks to check if everything is going as it should. Some companies have implemented mail tracking, cameras to verify where their employees are, and even microphones to listen to what the employees are saying and measure the stress in their voices.

What to expect in the future

According to towardsdatascience.com “ Over the next decade, more than 80% of process-oriented tasks will be done by AI systems. Quantitative reasoning tasks will be done approximately 50% by humans and 50% machine, while humans will continue to do more than 80% of cross-functional reasoning tasks.” 

And IDC predicts that by 2021 global spending on AI tech will surpass USD 57.6 Billion. That equates to a year on year growth rate of over 50%. So artificial intelligence in the workplace is absolutely here to stay.

Jessica Greene. (2016, July). 21 Ways AI Is Transforming the Workplace in 2019. Retrieved December, 2019, from https://www.askspoke.com/blog/support/how-ai-is-transforming-workplace/

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